


Baker School Blitz

by Satine89



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - High School, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine89/pseuds/Satine89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson, suffering from severe Social Anxiety Disorder, is sent by his kindly school counselor in Northumberland to one certain Baker Therapeutic Boarding School for Boys, with the aim to ease the burden on John's strained mind. Unfortunately, no one he meets - from crazed nymphomaniac Jim Moriarty to empathy-lacking neighbor Sherlock Holmes to perpetually stressed-out acapella singing club overseer Mr. Lestrade - has that same goal in mind.</p><p>Designed as a subversion of the stereotypical "wacky school club" anime and the tropes within.</p><p>Now has its own TVTropes page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/BakerSchoolBlitz</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I sure picked something weird for my first Sherlock fic, and my first first-person fic to boot! XD Basically, this is a very AU fic that is partially inspired by my own struggles with Social Anxiety Disorder, in addition to my increasing irritation with "wacky school club" tropes and ideas being stretched past the point of plausibility. This is just the prologue, but hopefully this looks promising to some people. Thanks in advance for checking this out!

I shouldn’t be so proud of the fact that I ended up in a therapeutic boarding school at sixteen years old.

Life has never been easy for me, and I’m well aware of that. Maybe I’m just proud of the fact that someone at my normal secondary school saw that I might be able to actually finish my education if given the right attention. I think I’m at least a little excited about being able to prove myself a decent enough student – I’m not stupid. I know I’m not stupid. I just… get so lost in my own head sometimes. My old counselor, the one at Northumberland High School, likes to call my little problem ‘getting lost in my head’. 

…I’m actually going to miss Mr. Stamford’s office at Northumberland. I’ve been thinking about everything I’m leaving behind there, and, in all honesty… there isn’t a lot. There’s my older sister Harry – we haven’t got on well since our parents died, and probably never will. Mr. Stamford was basically my second father at Northumberland, one of my few friends, considering how bad my disability had gotten over the past year.

Apparently, therapeutic boarding schools are a big thing in America, according to Mr. Stamford. They exist so that teenagers and children with mental problems, delinquent tendencies, and other such problems can get both the help they need for their issues, and manage to pass their classes. Though there was only one such school in the London area, it came with glowing recommendations from many health-care professionals, not to mention a government pension that would’ve allowed me to go with a minimal financial burden. After the last episode at the grocery store with the self-checkout machine, Mr. Stamford, Harry, and I decided that a therapeutic boarding school, as opposed to a continuation school, might be the only way for me to get over my crippling Social Anxiety Disorder without losing all contact with the world around me.

Social Anxiety Disorder. 

It sounds rather serious, doesn’t it? Harry thinks there may be an element of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to it all, but I wasn’t in the car when my parents died. She was. 

I’ve never been very good with people anyways, even when our parents were alive. I keep my nose down, I go about my business, but the pressures of social interaction… they’ve always been insanely hard for me to navigate. Panic attacks are frequent and painful. My hands tremble when confronted with the idea of dealing with people, meeting new people, displeasing people… hell, my own mother, God rest her soul, sometimes gave me panic attacks on accident. 

Primary school was bad enough. Secondary school in Northumberland was like being stuck in my own personal war zone. Everything seemed louder, more magnified, more intent on getting me out into the real world. Physical education alone gave me a panic attack a week. Changing in front of others was just too much to handle. On and off this went for years, right up until Year Eleven, when the administration – Mr. Stamford in particular – decided that something needed to be done to help me.

Harry and I couldn’t afford to go to a psychologist. Or a psychiatrist. We were living off of our parents’ saved money and the meager salary Harry made locally at a mobile phone store; a psychologist’s bill would bankrupt us. Dropping out of school wouldn’t do anything to help, and would only make our situation worse. 

And that led us to a pamphlet sent directly to the counseling office at Northumberland – one for the Baker Boarding House, on the outskirts of London, advertising its wares and how it could help poor sods like me get back on some sort of normal living path. I can’t say that I was totally enthused about the idea of sharing a room with someone, or going to a completely new environment, but Mr. Stamford continued to explain to me what the school would and would not do. The school would only put me with one roommate, understanding my need to acclimate slowly, given the Social Anxiety Disorder. They would not throw me into everyday school life without any help – I would have a therapist assigned directly to me that I would meet with every day and who would be there whenever I needed them, in addition to that. They would allow me to retake Year Eleven, considering how much school I missed due to my constant panic attacks. No medication. Nothing that would have an additional cost.

Harry had other things in mind when she looked at the brochure. She wanted me to get out and do more, always. She barely understood what was going on in my life, it seemed. She fussed over how it was an all-boys’ school, and how there were a lot of extra-curriculars and sports to partake in. She wanted to make it seem like everything happening was normal, I suppose. Harry was more like our father, anyways. I took after our mother. Probably why, like our late mother and father did before us, we fight fairly consistently. 

But it wasn’t before long, only a month or so, when all the arrangements were made. A few beds had recently opened up at Baker, and once I was placed in one, I began to receive all the documentation I needed to get started on August 14th. My new therapist, a certain Dr. Sally Donovan, corresponded with me by letter, introducing herself and what she did, hoping that it would be less stressful for me to read about her and her qualifications and what she hoped to accomplish with me in a letter, as opposed to being bombarded with it at school. The school sent me a welcome packet, maps, and all the normal school information – Harry noted it was like a university in that respect. I was also to get in touch with my eventual roommate, a certain Sebastian Moran, online, and he, like me, seemed fairly sedate. He likes video games, reading, and music, which hopefully meant he’d be fairly quiet.

But standing here, in front of Baker Boarding House, an imposing building of brick and mortar and austerity, I can’t help but think that, yes, I am lucky to be here. Proud of myself for even speaking to my soon-to-be roommate without feeling that constricting tightness in my chest, or feeling mildly nauseated, too. 

I also can’t help but think that something is about to go horribly wrong in my life, but I always think that. It’s the nature of being socially inept.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's initiation into Baker Therapeutic Boarding School begins! And everyone's normal! For now!

Dr. Sally Donovan is a nice enough woman.

I say that as a compliment, even though she makes me uncomfortable. Everyone makes me uncomfortable, as a general rule, but she’s as sensitive to my needs as Mr. Stamford was. She told me I could call her whatever I wanted when I first entered her office – it was my first stop in the boarding school, right on the first floor of the building. Some people had been milling around, but not many. The receptionist, who made my skin crawl by simply giving me a once-over, said that this floor was reserved for therapeutic and bureaucratic services, so most of the students on the floor would be talking to their own therapists or filing paperwork.

“I’m glad you’re in good spirits. Some students get very unnerved by the new environment,” Dr. Donovan says as I try to control the tremor in my hands. It isn’t very successful.

“I want to get back to school,” I admit. I was pretty good as a student, but my attendance records – not to mention the frequent hysterias I would fall into – were abysmal. Dr. Donovan seemed to understand that, nodding.

“…and most of my other students wouldn’t say that, either,” Dr. Donovan smirks, looking over the files that Mr. Stamford sent her. “It sounded like, from our correspondence, that you and I have the same long-term goals for your schooling – you want to be able to finish it, namely.”

“…not having as many panic attacks would be nice,” I add with a little smirk before my eyes drop to my legs, which are also trembling quite a bit. Even when I can carry on a conversation with someone, I have some sort of obvious symptom – shaking extremities, pallid skin, sweating, blushing. The girls at Northumberland who spoke to me used to think I was afraid of them because of all my blushing. Dr. Donovan writes something down in my file, biting her lip. I can’t help but find her tough-looking – her hair was expertly styled and curled, but every inch of her face spoke to her innate steely nature. She did seem to be kind, though. Maybe she only looks tough.

“John – are you all right with me calling you John?”

“Perfectly fine, Dr. Donovan.”

“John, Baker School is filled with students just like you, with challenges just like yours,” Dr. Donovan tells me with a light smile. “I hope this doesn’t upset you, but you do have one of the more severe cases of Social Anxiety Disorder I’ve seen.”

My stomach drops a little bit. That… is not heartening.

“…that doesn’t mean we can’t help, though,” Dr. Donovan continues. “Here, we’re going to work with social skills training, and we’ll talk through your day and what-not. We’ll pinpoint the things that generally set off your anxiety, and the things that trigger your panic attacks.”

“…and that will help?”

“I’m hoping so.” Dr. Donovan pauses for a moment, looking mildly concerned as she leans forward towards me. The chairs we sit on are comfortable little red armchairs, the brightest things in a taupe room. The desk is silver, the computer black, the paintings on the walls of rivers and other serene things. There is a weird chunk of plaster taken out of the wall near the desk… but I’d rather not ask.

“...John, even if those things don’t work, I want you to know that there are many, many more options. But I think, from reading your file and what you’ve told me, that figuring out what causes your anxiety will be a good way to stop its… constancy.” 

“Constancy is a good word.”

“I feel bad, honestly. You’re shaking right now,” Dr. Donovan points out unnecessarily. I know I’m shaking… but the little flash of anger is gone before long. She did nothing wrong, after all. And she feels bad about it.

“It’s better than the blushing,” I say.

Dr. Donovan smiles. “At least you have a sense of humour about you. …Tomorrow we’ll start to get into basic strategies and our first real therapy session, but we need to get you settled into the school.” She stands up; I immediately match her. She gives me a strange look, probably because of my immediacy. My father was very rigid on politeness, and, being in the army, his version of politeness was very different from most people’s versions of politeness. 

Heading to the door, she opens it for me, and the two of us walk through the main first floor hall, which is still strangely devoid of people. One young man, who has a rather unfortunate-looking face, is staring at a grades report, almost glaring at it. I can’t imagine he’s gotten any good news. Passing him, the two of us get into an elevator, and she presses the button for floor two.

Thankfully, the elevator has no music playing inside it. I hate elevator music. But then again, I’m not terribly fond of elevators, or small spaces, or being in elevators with women… Dr. Donovan takes the time to check her phone, and sighs at whatever she finds there. “Do you have a mobile, John?”

“Yes,” I say. “I can’t use it much. My sister pays for it, and we have a cheap carrier.”

“That’s good, though. I’ll give you my mobile number when we get to your dorm. If you ever feel the need to talk, call me.”

“Did you just get a summons?” I ask.

“Oh… no. A disciplinary notice.”

I don’t have time to ask her what that means, as the elevator opens up into a long hallway, littered with doors on either side. The floor is a bit of a disaster, strewn with bins, abandoned jackets, haphazard decorations and posters, and, occasionally, backpacks. Though the hall itself looks fairly regal, it’s obvious that schoolboys live here. Dr. Donovan leads me down the hall, speaking as she goes.

“Each door leads to a pod of rooms. You’re in Pod 21, room C. And I’m going to apologize right now for your suitemates.”

“My suite – why?”

Dr. Donovan doesn’t answer me, and instead procures a card key from her coat pocket, sliding it through the lock on a door labeled “21”. She hasn’t noticed that my trembling’s gotten worse since she mentioned my suitemates. And apologized for them. I thought she was supposed to be a health professional – so why did she say something so obviously frightening?

Inside 21, there’s a small center room, a bit like a commons area. Someone’s dumped all of their science equipment on the little wooden table there, but it probably wasn’t the same someone who put up a Call of Duty poster on the opposite wall. At least the refrigerator looks unlikely to kill me. 

At opposite ends of the room are two doors, one labeled B, and another labeled C. Dr. Donovan opens up the door to C before handing me her card key. “Don’t lose this.”

I slide the card into my wallet, noticing it has my name, age, year, and photograph on it. So that’s why I sent them all those things… Dr. Donovan enters the room before I even pull out my wallet, greeting someone inside. Must be Sebastian Moran, I think to myself, not listening to their conversation. That might be rude.

Dr. Donovan turns to me after a few seconds of idle chat with Sebastian, nodding to me. “If you need anything, give me a call. I wrote the number on your desk pad.” She pats me on the shoulder and strides out – I imagine her life is busy. Without much else to do, I step inside, closing the door to 21 C behind me.

Sebastian is really the only interesting thing in the room. It’s sparse in here, two beds on opposite walls, and two desks next to them. My things are bundled up at the foot of the bed; Sebastian doesn’t seem like much of an interior decorator, as the only thing he has up is a sizable ‘South Park’ poster and some handwritten Post-It notes. They all seem to be personal reminders. “Be your own person”, the largest and most visible one says.

Sebastian himself looks imposing, but is at least smiling at me as I take in my new surroundings, my new living space.

“I imagined you’d be taller,” he notes sardonically. I shrug a bit. I might be trembling still – meeting two people in one day hasn’t happened to me since before my parents passed on – but humour always appealed to me. Humourous people usually understood why humour was needed in the first place, to hide away the darkness, for just a little bit. And Sebastian does look a bit dark. Dark hair, stony gray eyes, a chiseled build. He looks nothing like short, stubby me. I’m in all right shape, but not the way Sebastian looks. 

I sit down on the bed opposite Sebastian’s. He’s sitting at the office chair near his desk, laptop propped open, hands folded in his lap as he spins back and forth, back and forth, back and… 

“It’s… it’s good to meet you, Sebastian,” I respond, clasping my hands together to stop them from so obviously shaking. 

“Call me Seb,” Sebastian asks, eyes glancing out the window. Light is pouring through at this point in the afternoon, and the window is one of the nicer parts of the dormitory. “…You know you’re shaking, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how it goes.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Sebastian frowns. “When I first got here, Dr. Donovan kept trying to get me to say I had something wrong with me. I guess everyone here has to have something wrong with them.”

“So you have nothing wrong with you?” I ask lightly, though I somehow trust Dr. Donovan to know more about it than Sebastian. Already, I can tell he might be a stubborn one. 

Sebastian nods curtly, once. Just once. “Guilt by association. My best friend… he’s definitely got something wrong with him, but damn it, I love the little sod. I’m just here to make sure he doesn’t do anything else wrong.”

“At least you have a friend here.” I still doubt Sebastian’s story, but there’s no point in pushing it, especially on the first day rooming here.

“What about you?”

“Social Anxiety Disorder.”

“Shit. That sounds nasty.”

“It’s not particularly pleasant, no,” I respond with a little head nod, eyes drifting across the room again. “Why is there no 21 A?”

Sebastian snickers a little, moving from his office chair to his bed. He picks up a book – Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange – and flips it open to a spot not very deep into the narrative, scanning the page before responding to me. “Nothing here makes sense. We’re the only pod to have a refrigerator, though.”

That’s nice. I lean back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. At home, I had a small mobile, with plastic planets and suns and the moon. I packed it, but I wonder if Sebastian would find something like that tacky. Or if it would fall off of its tack if someone upstairs walked too loudly.

“Dr. Donovan apologized for our neighbours,” I mention offhandedly.

Sebastian flips a page in his book. “Yeah, that was probably nice of her.”

“Are they bad?”

“They just hate each other. You’ll meet them both soon enough. One of them lives in the common area, and the other one… I don’t like him much either.” Sebastian spoke all of this in a monotone, as if he couldn’t really be bothered with anything relating to our two neighbors. 

“…does your best friend live next door?”

“Oh no. He lives on a completely different floor now.”

“…now?”

“…you might not want to meet him just yet. Because of your social… thing.”

Promising.

“They’ll be serving dinner in an hour or so. I can show you around then, if you want,” Sebastian says with a blank face. He really is hard to read. It’s all the chiseled features, I’m sure of it.

“…sounds good, Seb.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you for everyone who gave that little nub of a prologue kudos and hits! I know it wasn't much, but I'm glad that people are looking at this nonetheless. I do have quite a bit of this story already written out, so this is another 'get the ball rolling' chapter (sorry this story moves so slowly), but at least we get to meet Seb. Wheeeeee ~


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the greatly insufferable mind of Sherlock Holmes, master of deducing life detail from Tesco coats.

Sebastian is surprised by how well I take to the cafeteria food, once we’re on the mess floor, floor nine. Already Sebastian has told me much more about the school than Dr. Donovan – the dormitories are on floors two, three and four; five through eight is classrooms; nine is mess hall; ten is the library. The grounds are where we’ll go to gymnasium. There is an eleventh floor, he says, with a flurry of urban legends attached to it, but the guy with all the lab equipment in the common area at 21 B determined that it was nothing more than an attic.

“How’d he do that?” I ask.

“By going up to the fucking floor himself.” Sebastian sounds mildly amused by how easy the solution was. I get the feeling he’s not one for urban legends. Or frivolity of any kind. The two of us eat our lasagna in relative peace for a while, exchanging information about ourselves and the school. My schedule is a particular point of fun for Sebastian – he does revel in the weirdest things. At least I know that Mr. Lestrade is a strict but fair biology teacher, and that whatever I do, I should never cross Jeanette, my history professor. (And that everyone calls her Jeanette to piss her off.) 

From there the conversation goes to Sebastian’s current obsession, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which I don’t quite understand. I tell him I can’t afford the latest video games, to which Sebastian unequivocally states that I have to be taught. I offer to teach him what I know about the one thing I seem to be fairly decent at, time management – and we’re so absorbed in this conversation that we don’t notice the figure that sits down next to us until he speaks in a low, guttural voice.

“Why did you leave Northumberland?”

Both Sebastian and I blink, and turn to the teenager who’s just swept into our bubble, trenchcoat collar turned up and scarf pulled tightly around his pale skin. He’s typing on his little Blackberry model mobile phone, not looking at me, his dark curls falling down his forehead as he moves. Sebastian, for what it’s worth, goes back to eating almost immediately; I suppose this question is directed to me.

“…I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Not important,” the dark-haired teen responds, putting the phone on the table next to his coffee and turning to me. It kind of is – especially for me. I’ve been trembling intermittently, something Sebastian has noticed and been keen on pointing out, to save me embarrassment. The sudden assault by this man has me shaking all over… something the milky-eyed assailant notices and immediately nods at.

“Oh, I see. Social Anxiety Disorder. That’s rather unfortunate. What does your caretaker think of that?”

My throat is growing dry, and it takes all of my focus to not immediately try to hide in my food. Sebastian looks up at the interloper and gives him a stern look.

“Lock, you aren’t helping the Social Anxiety Disorder,” he says coolly.

“…Am I not?” And Lock – whatever kind of name _that_ is – seems genuinely confused by that assessment. Sebastian did give me time to breathe, and breathe I do. Deeply. In, and out. The trick Mr. Stamford told me about – if it’s in my control, I can calm myself down. In and out. I manage to stop a tumult before it comes, and glance to Lock, my face burning up. Nothing I can do about that. Sebastian seems unnaturally curious about my glowing cheeks, though.

“...Lock?”

“Sherlock. Holmes.” He practically sneers the name out. “Sebastian over here finds nicknames fun.”

“…I don’t have one –”

“Because ‘John’ can’t be shortened to anything,” Sebastian says with a shrug. I shake my head and turn back to Sherlock Holmes, still keenly aware of Sebastian staring at my visage.

“…how on _earth_ did you know about Northumberland?”

Sherlock’s eyes drift to the mobile phone I’d left on the table, but he says nothing about that. “Your coat. It’s of a make and model not sold in London proper, through the Tesco stores, probably because it would not sell well to the fashion-minded. I took a picture of you from across the cafeteria while I was in the queue and compared it to coats online to figure out the exact model, where I discovered it was sold primarily in Northumberland, which makes sense - far enough away to have its own sense of culture, a place with much rugged terrain that might require something so utilitarian. Also cheap enough to be bought by someone coming here on a government pension, as is statistically most likely at this boarding school.” He pauses. I can’t believe he actually ran out of breath. “And if I needed further proof to know that you are here on pension and not on your own funds, your phone is hopelessly out of date, probably unable to access the internet, and, unlike most teenagers, it’s awkwardly shoved in your left coat pocket and not sitting on the table.”

Another pause. Sebastian rolls his eyes at me before jerking his head in Sherlock’s direction. “He’s the one with all the tubes in the common area.”

“Ah” is really all I can say. I turn to Sherlock, aware that my shaking has increased, but at least my blush has gone down. “…that was incredible.”

“Hmm? Oh, not particularly,” Sherlock responds, distracted by a new thing on his phone. “Where’s Jim?”

“I am not introducing someone with Social Anxiety Disorder to Jim on his first day. Bad enough you’re here.” Sebastian seems pretty firm on this point. Sherlock types something into his phone before setting it back on the table and taking a drink of his coffee. 

“So. John. You’re clearly here to become acclimated to social pressures and situations. Are you here because your worst symptom is vomiting or panic attacks? You show signs of being susceptible to both.”

I really don’t know where to start with this guy. His… deduction of my hometown, I guess that would be the right word, was brilliant, and I’m still thinking about it as he asks about my symptomology. At the same time though, he is extremely confrontational. To the point where he’s exacerbating my anxieties. Weirdly, Sherlock seems aware that he’s doing this, but doesn’t get why this is a bad thing. I don’t want to guess why he’s here, but if there’s a disease whose entire symptomology is a lack of tact, it’d be my first guess.

“…I’d rather not talk about this while I’m eating,” I admit. 

“But you’re the first interesting thing I’ve heard of all day!” Sherlock protests with a groan.

Sebastian glares at Sherlock. “That’s my new roommate. Not a _thing_.”

Sherlock is about to respond when his phone goes off again, and he glowers at whatever text message he just got. “Never mind. This is interesting too.” And he sweeps off, angrily jabbing at his phone.

Sebastian watches him leave, and sighs as soon as Sherlock is out of the cafeteria. I sigh with him, relieved. I guess I was more under pressure than I thought.

“So he lives next door,” Sebastian says unnecessarily.

“Is he always like that?” I ask. It’s one of about seventy questions I have, but more important than ‘Why are his eyes almost white?’, ‘Who the fuck is Jim?’, and ‘Why does he look like he wandered off of a runway?’

Sebastian thinks for a moment before nodding uncomfortably. “His roommate hates him for it. But his roommate is even _more_ of a twat.”

“Terrific.”

“It’s fine. We’ll play Call of Duty and you won’t even hear them argue.”

“I look forward to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, the great Sherlock Holmes. Writing his little deduction might've been the hardest thing I've ever written... until I had to write another deduction for him for an upcoming chapter. He's always going to be a difficult character to get right, but hopefully I'm on the right track. Again, thank you all for the hits and the kudos!


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John regrets going to Biology a few seconds after he steps foot in the classroom.

School starts early in the morning for me. Sebastian, surprisingly, does absolutely nothing to make himself look like a muscle-bound matinee idol – he stumbles into the shower, stumbles out in five minutes, brushes his hair, and waits for a quarter-hour for me to get myself together. It takes me longer to put on pants than it does to get his entire self assembled.

We do eat breakfast together, and are undisturbed by Sherlock, thankfully. Sebastian mentions that we only have one class together, and our therapy sessions are at alternate times of the day, so we wouldn’t be in close contact with each other until after sessions end at four. We bid each other farewell, and I head to therapy.

Dr. Donovan thinks that I handled my meeting with Sherlock all right, considering how badly it caught me off guard. She says that the breathing method is a good beginners’ tool in order to stay calm enough to stay in a temporary situation.

“He really does catch a lot of us off-guard,” Dr. Donovan admits. I can tell that she wants to say something much more negative. “Part of the reason we put you in that pod was because of Sebastian Moran being a calming influence, though. I feel that if Sherlock caught you alone, we’d be having a very different conversation.”

I have no way of knowing that, so I don’t address that particular conjecture. “I do feel… somewhat more okay with Sebastian than I thought. He’s fairly sedate.”

“He’s worked miracles on… certain people.” Again, I get the feeling that Dr. Donovan wants to say something extremely unprofessional. “Not to mention that his last roommate was streamlined into regular school recently. How do you like talking to Sebastian?”

“It feels… I still shake when I talk to him, but I’m not as worried. I know I have to live with him, but he’s quiet, so,” I explain. “I get the feeling that he’s… he’s not out to hurt me.”

“Do you feel like people are out to hurt you all the time?”

“…not particularly, but… sometimes I feel that I’m in danger and I can’t do anything.” I look at her awkwardly. “Is that normal?”

“For Social Anxiety Disorder? Yes. I’m glad you’re admitting this. That could be a reason for your extreme reactions to society. But let me ask you this – do you think you felt threatened by Sherlock Holmes?”

I think for a few moments, and answer uncertainly.

“…no.”

\- -

My first class, History, is pretty bland. I don’t know anyone in the class, and no one seems particularly interested in me. The horse-faced guy who was mad about his grades was in the class, but I don’t feel comfortable enough to talk to him, especially since he didn’t notice me yesterday.

The Biology class is much, much, much worse.

Immediately, I notice that the only available seat in the class is next to the not-dangerous, but certainly aggravating to my condition, Sherlock Holmes. He makes no sign of recognizing me, already working on plugging in the microscope and assembling slides, despite there being ten minutes until class starts. Watching him is a mousy little teenager with thick brown hair… who is then soon watching me. Intently. I can tell within four seconds that he’s either the weirdest kid I’ve ever met, or just as bad at social interactions at I am. Which doesn’t explain why his head is constantly bobbing around like he’s some sort of feral lizard.

“Hand me the slide covers,” Sherlock says without much prompting, holding his right hand out as he adjusts the knobs on the microscope.

I’m a little too distracted by the person boring a hole into my forehead with his gaze to do so immediately. Sherlock glances up at me irritably before his peripheral vision gives him the answer he needs. He sighs.

“Oh. Right.” I really don’t know how Sherlock didn’t notice the crazy brunette kid before. Maybe he was just used to him. “John, this is Jim Moriarty. Jim, this is John Watson.” He pauses. “John has Social Anxiety Disorder.” Another pause. “…and is from Northumberland.”

“…right,” Jim says with a leering smile. This guy is seriously starting to freak me out, which is pretty much par for the course for me. My blushing starts acting up again, even as I hand Sherlock the slide covers he requested. Without so much looking at them, he mumbles “panic attacks” and goes back to his microscope, barely paying attention to how Jim’s now propped himself up against the lab table, invasive and fidgety.

“Right then, hello,” I say, basically to have something to say, extending my hand towards Jim. Jim glances at it, and his smile grows wider.

“You’re one of the ordinary ones,” Jim notes. I glance at Sherlock, who I should know won’t help me at all. True to form, he doesn’t, more concerned with opening the light aperture on his microscope wider. I withdraw my hand shakily.

“…I’m sorry?”

“Ordinary.” Jim says the word like it’s the most seductive thing ever, even if his eyes suggest it’s a grave insult. It’s incredibly unsettling. “Aww, you’re blushing! Am I that attractive?”

I really would rather not be here right now. Dr. Donovan was talking about people who made me feel threatened, and this Jim guy makes me feel threatened. All over. I think he wants to either devour me or kill me. Sherlock seems rather adept at ignoring all this – trying to keep my breathing regular, I think about maybe changing the subject.

“I assume you’re Sherlock’s lab partner,” I note.

“Good observation,” Sherlock says unironically, without looking up. 

“Are you jealous?” Jim asks cheerfully. He’s really getting off on my discomfort. I still haven’t sat down on the lab stool, nor do I really want to. I need to run. Get the fuck out of here, and down to Dr. Donovan’s office, or maybe just sit in the elevator by myself, but I probably can’t do that – 

“No,” I manage to spit out. Jim leans on the table awkwardly, as if his entire body is angling into it. I imagine he’s practically standing on the stool – he doesn’t seem very tall. About my height. If Sherlock would stand up, we’d both be dwarfed by him.

“Your blushing says otherwise,” Jim’s sing-song voice chirps out. That makes me blush even harder. I want to get the fuck out of this room. I need to get the fuck out of this room. Jim begins to say something else, but Sherlock, thankfully, cuts him off.

“You know as well as I do that blushing is a symptom of Social Anxiety Disorder. Can you not do this right now? It’s ten-twenty-three a-m.”

“Bo-ring…” Jim mumbles, but does actually do as said, giving me a lingering glance before going into his bookbag and procuring a lab notebook. Sherlock finally looks at me.

“You should probably step outside before you lose it,” Sherlock notes blankly.

“I won’t lose it,” I hiss back at him, even though that’s patently not true, but I do move to step outside. As I do so, pushing past someone to sit outside, I can hear Sherlock say, fairly bluntly, “Your pupils are dilated, Jim.” Whatever _that_ might mean.

I step into the hall, letting some cool air hit my face as I stand beneath a vent. All right. Let’s think about what just happened. 

Sherlock Holmes does not understand social interactions. Jim does. Jim knows how to make people as awkward as possible, and… his eyes dilated? Sherlock really can notice a lot of little irrelevant things about a person; I assume he can take those irrelevant things and make them relevant as well. It didn’t change the fact that he probably didn’t understand anything that just happened. Jim had just violated me with his eyes. And his words. Jim is the polar opposite of Sherlock, I think – Jim knows about talking to people, what you should do, and has some reason for completely ignoring every discomfited human signal on earth. 

I cling onto the breathing technique that served me so well last night. In and out. Deep. Focus only on the breathing. Dr. Donovan noted earlier that clearing my mind might help as well, thinking only of how I breathe, and nothing more. It isn’t working as well as she’d predicted, mostly because I keep reminding myself that I have to go inside eventually. Despite the door being open to the lab, I can’t hear anything coming from inside; the professor still isn’t here.

“Are you going to have a panic attack?”

I almost do. Sherlock Holmes, master of good timing, is looming over me, and I squeak loudly, turning bright red as I notice him. 

“…I’m trying not to!” I mutter irritably.

“Oh. Right. Good. We’ve been needing a fourth lab partner since Cab got streamlined.” I rather enjoy how skewed his priorities are. Oh wait, no I don’t.

“What the hell is that guy’s problem?” I ask reflexively.

“…Jim’s?”

“No, yours. Of course Jim’s!”

“He does that sometimes. It gets dull after a while.” That didn’t really answer my question, but I think Sherlock _thinks_ it did. “He’s calmed down a bit. Please come inside.”

“If he promises not to eye-fuck me again!”

“You see very defensive of your masculinity. Odd. I didn’t think you as homophobic.”

“…I’m not.” It’s weird that this has to be said – my sister’s been a lesbian as long as I can remember, and my issues with her were never about that. Her girlfriends usually treat me better than she does, why would I have a problem with them? “I don’t enjoy a surplus of attention. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“…Neither do I,” Sherlock admits, not sounding very vulnerable. But I can tell, from the way his lip twitches, that he probably found it very difficult to say. I nod in response, and the two of us stand in silence outside until Mr. Lestrade, a man with graying hair and a stressed countenance, ushers us inside because he needs to start the bloody class and no Jim he is not interested so shut the hell up.

Good to know, I thought as I sat back down next to Sherlock, now facing a skittish younger teenager, that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get Jim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. I fucking love writing Jim. Just needed the world to know. 
> 
> I do want to give a shout-out to my suitemate, who's been beta-reading this and being a general sounding board for me. It's a difficult task - putting up with my intricate questions about the potential daily schedule of Sherlock Holmes can't be the easiest thing to sit still through, so thank you.


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft Holmes And His Traveling Umbrella are recruiting for the Diogenes Club. In other news, erotomaniacs make terrible conversation partners.

“So that Jim person you said I shouldn’t meet on the first day? Good call, Seb.”

Sebastian and I are once again eating, this time lunch, in the mess hall. I keep seeing the horse-faced grade-watching guy everywhere I go, probably because he’s one of the few faces I recognize; he’s milling around one of the serving tables. Other than that, Sebastian really has nothing to say about his day except that one of these nights, he’s going to dump Sherlock’s “experiments” out of the fridge, so he can have a cold water bottle every once in a while. I don’t ask.

Sebastian stops poking some broccoli with his fork. “What’d he do?”

“Stared at me in a way that made me want to take a shower.”

“Yeah, that’s how Jim works.” Sebastian seems… relieved? That can’t be right. Relieved? 

“He’s now my lab partner. With Sherlock and some bloke named Henry.”

“Oh, so I’ll probably hear a different version of this –”

Sebastian doesn’t have time to finish his statement before Sherlock, Jim, and the man I keep seeing around with the horse-face descend upon our table. I clutch my cup of coffee so tightly that my knuckles turn white. They’re all already talking about… I can’t even fathom it.

“A violin cannot be used in competition, you dipshit, it’s a violin!” Horse-Face notes, focused intensely on Sherlock. Sherlock puts down his cup of coffee and immediately goes for his mobile.

“Jim, if you could kindly just speak to me, as we’re across the table from each other,” Sherlock asks monotonously.

“Are you even listening to me, Sherlock?!” Horse-Face demands.

“I didn’t know you knew John!” Jim immediately coos. He’s definitely not listening to whatever Sherlock and Horse-Face are talking about.

“I don’t know John!” Horse-Face snaps. I lean over the table and wave with my one free hand. Horse-Face waves back.

“Moira Anderson,” Horse-Face greets. …I decide immediately that I’m just going to address him as Anderson. He gets back on the terse subject of the violin before I can tell him that, though. “We’re an acapella group. Do you know what that means?”

“Of course I know what it means, I’m not the idiot here,” Sherlock says bitingly.

Sebastian, for what it’s worth, focuses on Jim, looking mildly annoyed. The violin argument continues unabated on the other side of the table. I really, really wish Jim was sitting next to Sebastian and not me. “…he’s my new roommate, I told you that.”

“Well, it wasn’t interesting until now,” Jim admits, winding an arm around my waist. No one has ever touched me like that, which is a really weird thing to think, but the only rational thought I have. The rest of my brain is a panicky keyboard-smash of confusion and ‘no no no no no no’.

Sebastian sighs, glancing at the ceiling, probably praying for divine intervention. “No. You are not sleeping with my roommate again.”

Again. Oh joy.

“Please stop touching me,” I practically beg, taking my coffee up to my lips with a trembling hand.

Jim actually does as told, but instead rests his head against my shoulder. His head is considerably smaller than mine. Again, only coherent thought between ‘dkna;fsldknasdiofnalds’ and ‘FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE’. Sebastian sighs again, trying to turn to Anderson and Sherlock for help. They’re still talking about why Sherlock cannot play violin in the acapella choir. 

“You look fluffy,” Jim informs me.

“…you look crazy,” I respond.

Jim smiles widely. “You caught on fast. It took this lot ages.”

Sebastian shrugs at me, as if to say ‘what can you do?’ Since I have no idea what I could do, I focus on throttling my coffee cup. I haven’t touched any of my food.

“Look, unless you want me to have a messy sobbing panic attack in the middle of the mess hall, could you please just not?”

“So you aaaaare gay?” Jim asks.

“…what?” I shake my head and jab my shoulder into Jim’s jaw lightly. It produces the desired effect – Jim sits up, rolling his eyes melodramatically. “What is your problem?”

I get three answers: Jim says “I’m lovestoned” before laughing at his own idiotic joke; “The world may never know” comes from Sebastian, who steals a puff of broccoli from my plate; “Satyriasis, erotomania, delusions of grandeur, narcissistic personality disorder, and general sociopathy” is Sherlock’s response (and actually helpful, to boot), ignoring Anderson informing him that he, ahem, “sucks ass at the violin anyways”. I stare at Sherlock for a second; his milky eyes meet mine, and he gives a little twitchy nod before playing with his Blackberry again, barely listening to Anderson.

Jim snickers at Sherlock’s response, rubbing the back of his neck and smirking. “Damn, I forget you’re good at that, too.”

“Jim, stop digging yourself into a hole,” Sebastian asks, and, miraculously, Jim actually listens, crossing his legs and taking a bite of the apple he picked up for himself. Apparently, Sebastian and I are the only people who actually eat in this group. Might explain why the rest of them are twigs.

“Erotomania, what does that mean?” I can’t stop myself from asking.

Jim pretends to be thoroughly absorbed in his apple. “Think, John. The Latin roots. Eros – love. Mania – madness. Mad love.”

“Basically, Jim is crazy and he loves it,” Sebastian responds blankly.

Sounds about right to me.

\- -

In English, I actually look up erotomania in the dictionary, as the class seems like a bit of a joke. (The teen sitting in front of me spends the entire time texting his girlfriend. Ergo, joke class.)

It’s a delusion wherein the sufferer believes that a higher-up, perhaps a celebrity or some such, is in love with them, and they believe themselves in love back. Huh. 

Satyriasis is basically nymphomania, I discover, except labeled for males. I can basically guess the other two. So, Jim is… crazy and loves it, yes, but is an oversexed, self-absorbed sociopath. Cool. I get why no one wanted to introduce me to him yesterday.

\- -

A man in the hallway with an umbrella tucked under his arm is posting up something on the bulletin board outside of my algebra class. It’s the class I have with Sebastian, and the both of us are mildly amused by this, for different reasons.

“Why does he have an umbrella indoors?” is my question. Sebastian crosses his arms, and looks more amused than ever I’ve seen him. 

“That guy,” Sebastian tells me, leaning to me so that our prey doesn’t hear (regardless of how bad I’m shaking, I do appreciate it), “is Mycroft Holmes.”

I blink. “…Sherlock’s brother.”

“The very same. You should go talk to him.” I sense this is a joke that Sebastian’s perpetuated before, but Mycroft looks about as likely to attack me as he is to drop his umbrella. He’s stern, wearing the kind of horn-rimmed glasses that only those over sixty usually wear, and dressed much more professionally than anyone else I’ve seen at the school. Nevertheless, noticing Sebastian’s incredibly wide smile, I walk up to look at the poster Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, put up.

“Diogenes Club?” I read.

“It’s quite prestigious,” Mycroft tells me before giving me a glance and rolling his eyes. “Though I’m not sure a teenager from Northumberland with some sort of social disease would fit in well.”

I snort. So he can do the same thing Sherlock can. “What’s this club do?”

“Only members can know. Might you be joining?”

“I might muddy up your carpets.”

“We’re always willing to accept trial runs,” Mycroft notes. He pauses, glancing just over my shoulder, before glaring back at me. “…assuming that Moran and his rent boy didn’t put you up to this.”

“That’s uncalled for,” I note. Sort of. Jim as Moran’s rent boy is kind of a funny image, honestly – Jim steamrollered over everyone I’ve seen him talk to.

“Our first meeting is on Friday. You may attend if you wish.” And with that, Mycroft saunters down the hall, swinging that umbrella around in circles.

It takes me a few moments to realize that Sebastian is by my side again.

“So. Did he invite you to join the Diogenes Club?” Sebastian asks. He was so expecting that. This was so an inside joke.

“Yes, after saying I was a backwards hick and calling Jim a male prostitute,” I say, a smile cracking onto my face. Yes, okay, Mycroft was delightfully weird, as opposed to just weird or crazy or… an erotomaniac. 

Sebastian cracks up, and the two of us move down the hall. “Oh my God, I have to tell Jim that... that’ll be so great. ‘Hey, Jim, your roommate thinks you’re a male prostitute, keep up the good work!’”

_“That’s Jim’s roommate?!”_ I don’t think I can process what their shared life would be like, based on what little interaction I’ve had with them.

_“I know!”_

_“Holy freaking God.”_

Sebastian nods sagely, as if we are having the most important conversation in the history of Baker Boarding School. As I continue to laugh as we walk down the stairs – me for woodshop, him for music – a thought hits me.

“…your best friend, the one that got you sent here. Was it Jim?”

Sebastian, collecting himself, nods curtly. “Unfortunately.”

“…what’d he do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“He robbed a bank using a ten-year-old laptop, fifteen dollars, and some gum.”

“…and you…?”

“Put the gum where it needed to be.”

I’ll go ahead and admit that I’m legitimately speechless. Sebastian seems to notice this, as he quickly bids me farewell and trots off to music. I watch him walk away, reminding myself that I should think more clearly – I’ve abused keyboard smash thought pretty thoroughly today, but it’s been one of those days, I suppose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in posting this one - this week has been incredibly hectic and stressful for me, and my muse managed to leave me for a bit. Hopefully this is still a decent piece of writing. 
> 
> Per RoseRed's comment on the last chapter, I may go back to modify some details about John's financial issues, but that probably won't be done until I post Five.


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They can't all be winners.

“I’m so sorry about that. I thought that group would have more self-restraint around you.”

Last night, I made the decision to tell Dr. Donovan everything that happened yesterday, which flits through my mind in snapshots –Jim’s body curling into the lab table, Anderson showing up everywhere I went, Mycroft Holmes and his umbrella of doom and his Diogenes Club. My unraveled nerves. ‘Neither do I.’

Dr. Donovan listens to fragments of what I say and writes down things hurriedly, and by the time I’m done detailing how I found one of Sherlock’s experiments – a human hand from what I assume and genuinely hope is a dead body – in the refrigerator, she puts her notebook down. I can see how many furious scribbled notes are on there. One of the plainest ones is “speak to Dr. Dimmock – JIM”, seeing how it’s been underlined a couple-dozen times. Others that stick out to me: “barely contained uncontrolled panic”, “submissive personality”, and “Diogenes Club???”

I lean back in the armchair, frowning. I feel my arms shaking lightly against the fabric. Reliving the events didn’t trigger anything too bad, but the thought of dealing with those emotions anew doesn’t exactly sound fun to me. Every day will probably be like this – desperately trying not to have a nervous breakdown. Harry would say that I need to be more positive.

“Sherlock made a better impression yesterday than he did the day before,” I tell her, by way of trying to be a little positive. A little caveat to a sister who isn’t here to see it.

Dr. Donovan nods. “…John, I feel like I have to tell you this. No one that you seem to have made friends with will really make your life with social anxiety disorder any easier.”

I could’ve figured that one out myself. “I… I had that feeling. But they seem to like me.” In Jim’s case, a little too much; in Anderson’s, that ‘like’ was probably a figment of my imagination.

“I do want you to make friends. I just wonder if it’s possible with that group.” Dr. Donovan can be very blunt when she wants to be. I get the feeling she’s still holding back a lot of information – she probably knows about ten different reasons for me to stay as far away from every student here. Such is the power of a psychologist.

“They seem tight-knit.”

“They’re all in the same club. The Acapella Singing Club. They do competitions and such, but… they aren’t very good. I don’t understand how that group stays together – they’re very different. You might’ve noticed. And every therapy session I have with one of them, they spend the entire time trying to figure each other out.” Dr. Donovan pauses. “The Diogenes Club is calmer, from what I understand.”

“What actually happens there?” I ask.

“I really don’t know.”

I can tell she wants me to look towards the Diogenes Club, but I’m sorry. I’m not joining something I don’t understand. I can’t really sing and never really have, but at least I understand the point of an acapella choir. I should look up Diogenes, see if it’s even a word.

\- -

The rest of the day plays out much like yesterday – constant blushing, everyone being singularly self-absorbed, people getting into my personal space bubble, Sebastian and I being the only people eating. I finally slog back from the grounds – of course my last class is physical education, I think bitterly as I tromp up the stairs to the dormitory, wander down the trashed hallway, and unlock the door to pod 21.

Sherlock is sitting at his table, dripping something crimson and coppery into a test tube full of what appeared to be ordinary water. It looks like blood, but whatever it is fizzes when it contacts the liquid in the bottom of the tube. I start to wonder what that might mean, but Sherlock lifts his ethereal eyes towards me and smiles lightly.

“I know this isn’t part of the curriculum,” he says in response to nothing I’ve said. I have to smirk at that, sitting opposite him at the table.

“Why does it fizz like that?” I ask.

He glances at the test tube, then back at me. “…I invented a substance that can detect blood in any substance, no matter how small the sample. I was wondering if it would work reverse-engineered to detect other substances contaminating blood, but the compound has turned into little more than a blood-scented bath salt.”

“They can’t all be winners. What about the substance that can detect blood?”

“…what about it?”

“I don’t really know, I just wanted to see what you’d tell me about it,” I admit. “…how was your day?”

“Perfunctory,” Sherlock says blankly. He really isn’t that good at talking, but he’s not the same kind of aggravating presence I thought at first. (Maybe because I’ve met so many worse individuals since his initial deduction.) I still tremble as he puts his dropper aside, spurting most of the blood in it into a small beaker and labeling it “Experiment 0732”. “I take it that you’re growing more at ease with me, given that you sought to speak to me yourself and aren’t turning a bright crimson.”

“…possibly. I never really know. My… my own mother gave me a panic attack once.”

“Your condition is rather severe, then,” Sherlock says, getting up to place the blood into the fridge, right next to the hand. He picks it up and looks at the severed end, grimacing at it before closing it up and moving back to the table, sitting down and opening a small logbook laying on the table. He writes as he continues on. “My psychologist informed me that I might need to… Dr. Donovan’s exact words were ‘tone down my behavior so that John Watson doesn’t have a heart attack before the end of the first week’. I think I’m doing an all right job of things right now.”

Maybe Sherlock is just incapable of keeping things to himself. I shouldn’t be trying so hard to figure out what everyone around me has wrong with them, but I really can’t help it. The only person I really know about is Jim, and that’s because of Sherlock… yet everyone seems to know that I’m the teen with the debilitating social anxiety. I drew the short end of the stick there.

“I know that the anxiety is unpredictable, but I can tell what aggravates you most,” Sherlock notes.

I blink. “That’s funny. I don’t even know that.”

Sherlock glances at me like I’m crazier than him, but he returns to his writing, speaking as he scratches out some notes on the bath-fizzy. “You told me attention unnerves you already, but you seem to do fine one-on-one with people, so it cannot just be attention – otherwise all interactions would send you into a frenzied panic. I took a look at your social interactions, then. You feel more comfortable with Sebastian, something that’s obvious from your body language when you speak to him and your shared habits – eating, walking with a slouch, keeping to yourselves unless directly addressed. That slouch says a lot about how the two of you perceive yourselves, as those who slouch generally are victims of their own battered self-esteem. Jim is the exact opposite, wildly unnerving you, at first I thought because of the sheer amount of attention he was forcing on you - and don’t feel like he’s doing it to get under your skin; he does it to get under your skin and to give himself sexual satisfaction – but you had a similar problem with me in our initial meeting, and that attention was not rooted in any sexual desires. You never seem to stand up for yourself anyways, unless under extreme duress, and even then, it’s less of a desire to stand up for yourself and more of a self-preservation measure on your part. I think it goes beyond you not liking attention – you genuinely think you don’t deserve any, and any interaction that tells you otherwise makes you choke.”

I don’t know if he’s right or not. I do know that my tremors are fairly violent for a moment after he’s finished speaking. I mull this over in my head. I don’t deserve attention? Could I really think that about myself? I don’t have low self-esteem. I’m not very good at anything except becoming hysterical, but I always got okay marks, was a good student. I didn’t have many friends, but that could change. I… It could be worse for me. 

Sherlock watches me expectantly. I don’t think he wants to be told he did a good job, though. 

“That’s not it,” I say forcefully.

Sherlock blinks. “No, you have all the signs of chronic lack of self-confidence. That slouch of yours says a lot.”

I didn’t think I slouched, either, but that’s something I can actually believe is true. I frown even more deeply. “I don’t hate myself.”

“John, if you’re worried about people thinking less of you, don’t. No one here is a sterling example of self-confidence.”

Weirdly, I can come up with a few people who seem to possess it in spades – Sebastian is relatively self-assured. Jim is far too self-assured. Sherlock can’t even bring himself to think he’s wrong right now, what does that say about his self-image? He’s pulling things out of his arse.

I stand up, the mild enthusiasm I had for this conversation completely diminished. “I’m turning in.”

Sherlock is already back at his notebook. “At five-thirty-seven p-m?”

“Why not?” I call back, going into my room and closing the door behind me with a little too much force. Sebastian is in there, laying back on the bed, texting someone on his mobile. He gives me a nod and goes back to his conversation.

“Want to eat?” he asks.

“I want to sleep.”

“Probably a good move. Apparently Henry Knight is busy having a psychotic break in the mess hall.”

“…my lab partner Henry Knight?”

“Happens about twice a month. You get used to it.”

I throw myself onto my bed and cover my head up with my pillow. The Diogenes Club is sounding less and less stupid as time goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daaaaamn Sherlock's big deduction speech was hard to get on paper. I'm still not happy with it. Sigh. Such is life. This is a transition chapter - shit is gonna hit the fan in the next chapter, so be prepared. <3


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not sure how I don't lose it here and now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, usually I do the after-the-chapter notes, but there are a few mild triggers in this chapter, particularly for attempted sexual harassment/assault. I should just have a "Jim" warning. Jim's involved, there's your warning.
> 
> Onto the chapter.

I’m awoken by Amy Winehouse.

Not the real Amy Winehouse, obviously, but her music. This strikes me as odd, especially since Sebastian has only listened to the sounds of his cell phone and his video games since I moved in. He is not much of a music person, from what I can gather. When I pull my head out from under the pillow, I notice the shadowy figure sitting on the floor reading doesn’t have the same build as Sebastian, either. Too short and thin and… 

“What the fuck, Jim, why are you in here?!” I hiss at him. I can’t see Sebastian anywhere in the room – I can’t see anything, really, except what the moonlight illuminates. It’s not much – a slat of Jim’s face, the cover of his book (Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which seems painfully ironic given his circumstances), his bare feet, a swatch of the turn-ups on his black drainpipe jeans.

He doesn’t look at me, instead flipping the page disinterestedly. “I didn’t think the music would wake you.”

“Well, it did.” I can already feel my face burning up and my arms shake. I sit up and lean against the cold wall, stiff-backed, glaring at Jim. He still ignores what I’m doing.

“She sings some rather beautiful songs,” Jim continues on. “You can tell she suffered considerably in her life. That’s where art comes from. Suffering.”

“Where the hell is Seb?” I ask irritably, trying to look around the room. I don’t get very far in that. It appears we’re the only two in here. Great.

Jim finally looks at me. I think the nickname got his attention. He smirks at it, his tongue flicking out a bit to lick his lips. “He’s with Anderson and Sherlock next door. I kicked him out.”

“…it’s his room,” I protest.

“Not right now it isn’t.” I’m starting to see the sociopathic tendencies Sherlock spoke about. Our conversation comes back to me, and I feel my teeth grind a bit. Apparently, according to the theories of the great Sherlock Holmes, the reason I feel so uncomfortable about this situation is not because there is a crazy person sitting on my floor invading my room, but because I hate myself. Right. Someone who loved themselves wouldn’t be breathing in and out at a steady pace, desperately trying not to throttle the little twat sitting on their carpet.

“…okay, so why are you here?”

“I’ll let you know how this is going to go,” Jim says, setting his book down idly. “You’re new, and alive.”

“Shock.”

“And you have a nice bit of fight in you,” Jim says with a leer. “And I’m… well, you know about me, so there’s no need to explain much. Let’s just fool around a bit and then we can both go back to our normal lives.”

I really hope the darkness is covering how absolutely blood-red my face is right now. I’ve never been propositioned before, by _anyone_. There was a girl in Northumberland, a scientific girl by the name of Jennie Stapleton, who fancied me slightly. I responded to her small, sweet request for coffee by promptly devolving into a series of unintelligible mumbles and fleeing. Thus ended my dating life in Northumberland. This was neither small, nor sweet, nor anything I actually wanted. Nor anything Jim should want, either.

“…shouldn’t you… this might be a bit presumptuous, but maybe you shouldn’t be having sex? Considering that you’re addicted to it?” I offer.

Jim snorts. “Having sex is better than what happens if I don’t.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“Things.”

“Well, maybe you could –”

“It’s none of your _goddamn **BUSINESS!”**_

I stop breathing entirely.

Someone completely different is sitting in front of me, someone who isn’t the hyperactive manipulative flirt I know from class. His eyes harden, narrowing; his lips sneer at me; his body curls in on itself, fingers twitching and chest shaking from the exertion that shout took. And as he stands up, still in that infernal mode, his whole body burning with that same dark possession, I pull my legs up against my chest, doing anything to shield myself from the energy shift in the room. Jim gets as close to me as he can without actually standing on the bed, the music filtering into another Winehouse song I recognize. “Love Is A Losing Game”. Nothing going on makes any logical sense – the complete shift in Jim from floozy to murderous, the melancholy bass and piano matched by Amy’s sparse voice, the shifting moonlight, the fact that my body seems unwilling to cooperate with the situation any longer and is doing anything it can to protect itself.

“Just because you’re stupid enough to let everyone in on your biggest secrets doesn’t mean the rest of us are interested. Or stupid enough to do the same,” Jim says. His voice seems to have dropped several octaves. I miss the sing-song tone. At least I could predict that. I gulp down some air, wondering if he knows the state I’m in, not sure how to respond. Jim tilts his head, slowly, looking so reptilian as to be inhuman, before a smile cracks onto his face. 

I’m not sure how I don’t lose it here and now.

“You’re so beautiful when you’re a mess.”

I know why I lose it here and now. 

I bury my head between my legs, even though I’m sure that’s what he wants me to do – maybe that’s what he intended the whole time. Or maybe not. The panic attack that comes is swift, brutal, merciless in its efficiency. Everything swirls out of focus, air comes unsteadily, tears stream down my face, and I can’t even hear what Jim is saying. He’s gotten really close to me. I think he might be petting me – I only feel one pet, and that makes me burst out anew, curling into the closest approximation of a ball I can get into. 

Panic attacks are ravaging. My chest hurts from heaving out sobs and trying to breathe in and out and trying to normally function and trying to stave off the shakes that won’t stop. My ears are ringing with the sounds of my own sobs, filled with the sounds of my brain exploding into a fury of irrationality. Every fear I could have in this situation magnifies itself, and the thoughts feed each other, endlessly, a cycle of cruel manipulation – Jim is going to hurt me. How is he going to hurt me? Let’s say rape. Jim will rape me. And when he does that, he’s going to get off on my tears, and I’ll keep crying because I’m being assaulted. And I can feel his hand still on my head for just a split second and I know that’s where it’s going, either that or having my head slammed into the wall, rationality be damned, because nothing he says right now can be good, and if I do get my head slammed into the wall, at least I won’t be so aware of my surroundings –

Stuck in the prison of my own mind, I don’t notice anything around me for a long period of time. Just darkness, filtered moonlight, and my own increasingly hysterical thoughts, matching my own increasingly hysterical visage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super-short, but here's our new arc in this story. I hope I didn't scar anyone too badly.


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loony friends aren't exactly a godsend, on most days.

The first thing I remember coming out of that first panic attack is a petrified Jim handing me a water bottle. The room was still dark, but it was an isolated memory, amidst a flurry of blackness.

The second thing I remember was when the world started to come back into relief. Sherlock was kneeling in front of me, taking my pulse; Sebastian hovered; Jim hid in the corner, staring out the window, looking visibly nauseated, before taking his leave.

And I finally fully come to when Anderson arrives with Dr. Donovan. Somehow the occupancy of the room has exploded since I last recall things happening. Jim’s returned, pensively staring out the window like before; Sherlock is sitting in Sebastian’s chair, fingers pressed together like a steeple, his eyes only lifting when Dr. Donovan walks past him. Sebastian is leaning against the opposite wall, eyes darting about. Anderson, to my surprise, sets up on the floor by Sebastian’s feet, while Dr. Donovan sits down next to me. I’m suddenly very aware of how wet my face is, and the throbbing in my temples. I know I’m breathing, but I don’t really register it.

“…Moira came to get me, John,” Dr. Donovan says unnecessarily. I’m too mentally exhausted and physically drained to respond. Anderson doesn’t look at me directly; he’s looking at my arms, which are quivering.

Dr. Donovan continues. “He says things got out of hand.”

Jim, oddly, looks like I feel – strung out, arms pulled close to his scrawny torso, rustling the fabric of his v-neck. There’s some water drying on his sleeve. I really wish I knew if that was from the water bottle, or from me crying. I meet his gaze for just a moment before I jerk away. He looks… pathetic. Pathetic is a good word for it. And I don’t fucking know _why_.

“John, you need to say something,” Dr. Donovan presses.

“What happened?” I ask. My voice has a surprising edge to it. Sebastian blinks, as does Anderson.

“…what, you don’t remember?” Anderson asks, chav that he is. I glare at him while Sherlock rolls his head around and sighs, staring at the ceiling.

“Sometimes panic attacks can be accompanied by prolonged states of dissociative fugues, or, as what seems to be the issue in John’s case, complete mental blockage, known colloquially as a blackout.” Sherlock gives me a look that screams ‘you’re welcome’. I wonder how many medical textbooks he’s memorized.

“…I don’t remember much,” Jim suddenly interjects from his hiding spot in the corner of the room, “but it’s my fault.”

Dr. Donovan pauses. When did she take out her notebook? She’s scrawling on it. Another note to talk to Dr. Dimmock. Poor Dr. Dimmock’s gonna have one hell of a morning tomorrow. “That’s very impressive of you, Jim, admitting fault.”

“Well, I shouted at him when he started asking questions. I don’t like questions,” Jim says by way of explanation. “…and then I kinda… lost it.” He says it with a light airiness, like he’s admitting he stayed in the sun too long. He has no grasp of what he just did to me. Sebastian looks at Dr. Donovan with a hard gaze; she returns it. Evidently they have an understanding on this matter.

“We’ll talk about that later, Jim,” Dr. Donovan notes. She writes down ‘anger management issues – confirmed’, and I don’t think she knows I can see what she writes down next. ‘Potential full-blown psychosis.’

Potential full-blown psychosis. 

“John, we have a free, empty room right now. Why don’t you stay the night in there?” 

“…thanks, that sounds… good.”

\- -

Biology finds me face-to-face with Jim again. Sherlock and Henry haven’t arrived, and Henry probably won’t be back in class for a couple of days, based on what Sebastian told me before… The Event. It sounds hopelessly melodramatic even in my head, calling it The Event, but calling it My First Panic Attack At Baker School is both too long and almost too specific. I don’t want to think too hard about those emotions, not until I know what happened.

Jim looks far more subdued today, and like he hasn’t slept. Just like me. I tried and failed, even in the silence of a cold, unfamiliar, empty room. His beady eyes are watery and red, slightly puffy, and he smells of tobacco – I didn’t realize anyone here smoked, but who knew with this group. Or Jim. Full-blown psychosis. He lazily looks at me as I sit down, something I can tell even though I’m not looking back at him. I can sense that he wants to talk from the thick wall of tension he’s projecting, but I’m not very interested in whatever he has to say. He would’ve assaulted me.

“…Dr. Dimmock urged me to apologize for last night,” Jim starts off the conversation I don’t want to have.

I glare at Jim. “…and?”

“I’m not going to do that,” Jim admits, still looking solemn. At least he’s not brushing it off, but…

“You _motherfucker_ ,” I spit at him as venomously as I can. “You made me think I was going to get _raped_ by you. _At the very least._ And you aren’t going to apologize. At least tell me why.”

“You’re red again,” Jim notices, his voice low and almost regretful (about the wrong thing. Full-blown psychosis. Over and over and over again), before he continues. “…I’m not going to apologize because of what an apology means. It means I’m sorry for what I did, and that I’ll endeavor to make it never happen again. I can’t say either of those things.”

I almost launch myself across the table, something Jim predicts by scooting his stool away from the table’s edge and crossing his legs. 

“I know. You’re angry. And frustrated. And embarrassed,” Jim notes. His voice is taking that dangerously low tone again. A brief flashback, and a bead of sweat falls down the nape of my neck. Jim doesn’t appear to be in that beyond-angry state, though; just serious. “You can’t control your panic attacks, or your blushing, or the sweat that just eased down your neck.”

“How -?”

“Sherlock’s not the only person who can do that.” Jim pauses, licks his lips quickly, stares at something on the ground. Neither of them, I’ve noticed, treat this deductive skill for the genius it is. “The point being that you can’t control what’s happening to you. You’re here because you want to learn how to control it and live with it, but it’s not something you can ever fully master. …Same goes for me.”

I think I understand where he’s going. “You’d like to be able to say you’re sorry and mean it –”

“I apparently can’t care about anyone but myself,” Jim confirms. “Dr. Dimmock says I lack empathy. I have to believe him, because the way he describes it… it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve felt before.”

I shake my head. “But Seb –”

“He stuck around.”

“Sherlock?”

“Entertaining enough.”

“Anderson?”

“No one likes Anderson. You don’t like Anderson.”

Point taken. “…your family?”

“My brother is a professor with an IQ half mine and the irritating propensity to smother me in an attempt to protect my interests. My parents never knew what to do with me and sent me here to avoid seeing me rot in prison – or an asylum.” Jim seems completely unperturbed by the absolutely horrifying implications of what he’s been saying. His attitude drives home his point more than anything he says. “And there’s no way I can know that it’ll never happen again. I would feel much less like an idiot on most days if I wasn’t shagging anything with a pulse, but it’s better than the alternatives.”

I don’t ask about the alternatives. Not making that mistake again.

“An idiot. That’s how you feel about it?”

“Well, yeah. That level of physical attachment… it’s stupid to even engage in. It only makes people have feelings and regrets and shames. I don’t really deal with things like that, and pretending to care about it in others… is really annoying. Ordinary.” Jim makes a face. I will never be able to understand where he’s coming from, but at least I know he’ll never be able to understand where I’m coming from, either. 

“Ordinary. Code for bad.”

“No, just… uurgh. You know? Ordinary.”

Ordinary equals uurgh. I file that down in the mental rolodex before looking at Jim expectantly.

“So… you won’t apologize because you can’t guarantee you won’t do this in the future.”

“You’re intelligent. I can see why Sherlock’s taken a bit of a shine to you.” I raise an eyebrow, even though I have no desire to know what he means by that. The sex addict telling me that someone’s a bit attached to me doesn’t have much weight. “But right. I know that what I did was wrong.” He grows a little more withdrawn after a few seconds. “I mean… that was fucking weird. That… whatever I did. I’m used to not being able to control myself, but that was a completely different lack of control. Unhinged. Like Henry Knight unhinged.” He gestures to the empty chair, says Henry’s name like he’s the epitome of crazy. Takes one to know one, I think of saying, until my empathy and emotions sink in. Jim is basically telling me that he doesn’t know what he did, doesn’t know how to stop it in the future, and doesn’t have the capacity to understand the consequences of his actions. He’s a shell of a human being, driven completely by his sexual desires and implicit thirst for chaos. Full-blown psychopath.

But I feel bad for him. I guess I’m just as fucked-up, in my own way.

“I still don’t like you,” I tell Jim bluntly.

“You’ll just have to learn to deal with it. Everyone else did,” Jim says, again so blankly that I think he doesn’t grasp how depressing that is. Everyone just deals with Jim Moriarty. 

“…that’s really sad, mate.”

“Is it?” Jim doesn’t care. He starts fiddling with the microscope. “Don’t tell Sherlock that I’m screwing up all of his microscope adjustments.”

…it’s just really sad. I didn’t think I could pity the guy who looked ready to murder me last night, but I do. I’m still blisteringly _not okay with that_ , by the way, but… maybe I was right last night, coming out of that hazy, petrifying lack of memory. Jim is pathetic, in an incredibly wrenching way, because he doesn’t realize he’s pathetic.

\- -

I make an effort to seek out Sherlock while he’s by himself later in the day. (He’d been pretty much himself during Biology, saying only that if I was going to attack Jim at any point in the day, he wanted me to make it after Biology. He wanted to finish the three-week lab today. Which he did.) Later in the day turned out to be right after lessons, my knees covered with grass stains from our first attempts at playing football as a group. I almost got nailed in the face, but to be fair, most of the people in the class look as sporty as Sherlock. Can’t blame them for their lack of coordination or, in one student’s case, abject fear of the goal net.

He was still experimenting with reverse-engineering his blood-seeking solution, with similar results. Now the liquid he dropped into the blood was red, and, upon contact, surprise, the blood fizzed up once more. I watch this a few times from the doorframe before sitting down opposite him. He doesn’t notice me, his face mildly twitchy. 

“Sherlock,” I say tentatively.

“What? Oh, hello, John.” He sets aside his beaker of blood a little more forcefully than necessary, his eyes probing me for a second before his dropper of bright blue liquid is also set aside. “You want to speak to me about something serious. You look much more professional when you don’t slouch, by the way, something to keep in mind.”

I nod, not even thinking about the advice. “I wanted to ask you about what happened last night.”

“…why me?” Sherlock doesn’t ask the question to fill space. He genuinely doesn’t know. It’s not really something readable, I suppose, so his deductive skills will fail him.

“You’ll tell me the facts,” I say. “And that’s what I need right now. I talked to Jim –”

“- I figured as much. He doesn’t seem as… baffled.” Sherlock acts like that wasn’t quite the word he was looking for, but folds his hands together, in the small space on his table not crowded by glassware. “Well, in regards to last night. About ten-thirty-seven p-m, Jim knocked on Sebastian’s door and asked if he could have the room. I was in this room, working on some homework of mine that would’ve taken maybe ten minutes at the most, while Anderson had the door to 21 B open, doing some reading that he still hasn’t finished yet despite its basic nature.” I shouldn’t have expected any explanation for any of this, I realize as soon as Sherlock starts laying down facts. And nothing else.

“Sebastian gave Jim the room and moved into my room with Anderson. They started talking about what Jim planned on doing, and whether or not it was a good idea for Jim to be in there. In retrospect, Anderson was actually right, which makes it the fourth time he’s been prescient enough to determine relative truth since I met him two years ago.” I let out a small burst of laughter; Sherlock’s very small smile is reward enough. “…your shaking’s not as bad right now.”

“It comes and goes,” I note. “I was fairly agitated this morning… until I talked to Jim.”

“Right. Well, anyways.” I almost laugh at the awkward transition. “I moved into the room shortly after to do my own work and listen to the conversation. Sebastian was of the mind that the sooner Jim was turned down, the sooner life could go on, so he should just let it happen. Anderson thought that Sebastian shouldn’t have left, which, like I said, was right. After fifteen minutes, we heard some music come through the walls. Sebastian assumed that you didn’t reject him, and planned to wash sheets the next morning.” 

My shaking picks up again.

“About three minutes later, at ten-fifty-five p-m, we heard Jim shouting, and Sebastian said, and I quote, ‘that sounds really bad’. Anderson tried to listen through the wall, but we didn’t hear anything else for another minute, when we heard you begin to cry. Sebastian immediately left and started heatedly knocking on your door, but it didn’t have much of an effect. He sat down in the common room and steamed for a bit, and at eleven p-m on the dot, Jim emerged, grabbed a water bottle in a panic from the refrigerator, and went back into your room, locking the door behind him.

“Anderson was still listening through the wall, and he managed to pick up a fragment of what Jim was saying to you, so at eleven-o-nine, he moved to knock on 21 C, basically telling Jim that he’d get every psychologist in the building awake if he didn’t open up. Jim buckled under the pressure and did so. I came in with Sebastian and Anderson and I began to take your vitals. I wrote them down if you’d like to know exact numbers –”

“I’m all right, Sherlock,” I say, more curious about what Anderson heard Jim saying, or why Jim thought a water bottle would help. You know, things that Sherlock would never tell me.

“ – well, the most startling thing to me was your incredibly elevated heart rate, not to mention that no reasoning could get through to you. You said maybe five words, and all of them were unintelligible. Jim left and came back, and Sebastian yelled at him when he got back for being a complete wanker. Anderson started shuffling through your things and ended up finding Dr. Donovan’s number on your desk at eleven-thirty-one p-m. He immediately called her, and then went to retrieve her.”

Sherlock leans forward on the desk, eyes flickering over me. That was exactly what I wanted – a timeline, nothing emotional, nothing judged, just presented. Or so I thought. I’m going to have to talk to everyone eventually, I suppose, about what happened. Maybe talk to them twice.

I really do hate my condition in times like this. I always had to do this, after I had a panic attack, at home. Talk to my mother, my father, Harry, anyone at school who cared about me at all. Most of the time, being a loner actually came in handy. But here, there’s so many people putting themselves in my path that I have to go through a laundry list just to feel like I haven’t wronged anyone.

Sherlock takes my silence rather seriously.

“Was that bad?” Sherlock asks.

“What? Oh, no.” I pause. “It just seems like the more I know, the more I need to know.”

“Such is life,” Sherlock commiserates before picking up his vial of blood again, looking at how half of it is now pinkish bubbles, clinging to the glass sides, foaming and delicate. “Trust me. You will never know everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the summary of this story, I mention that I intended this as a deconstruction of anime-esque 'wacky school club' tropes. Though we haven't quite gotten into the 'club' part of that, this chapter is a huge part of why I classify this as a trope deconstruction story. Every time I see something like 'Haruhi Suzumiya', I can only think about how terrifying, or horrible, or disheartening hanging out with the titular character, or any of her reality-warping brethren, would be. Not acknowledging how abusive or mentally disturbed those characters are makes me wonder, in what universe could anything like 'Haruhi Suzumiya' be considered light-hearted entertainment? 
> 
> That was a rather random way of saying that things may get lighter as we progress, but the essential darkness of it all won't be lost. Hope you enjoy this chapter - it was my favorite to write so far.


	9. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chinning someone is not appreciated at Baker Boarding School - even if that someone is Moira Anderson.

I find myself face-to-face with Mycroft Holmes, he of the umbrella and prickly demeanor, after walking out of the worst therapy session I’ve had since I started classes. Dr. Donovan was trying to pull everything I’d learned out of me, but, despite it being two days and one night since The Event, I haven’t exactly processed everything. I don’t know what I want to do about any of it, and I could care less about her suggestions to stay away from that group for a while. (It’s not like I can anyways. Sebastian glued himself to me last night and we ended up sitting around playing video games. I am terrible at video games.)

Already in a spectacularly awful mood – shaking and blushing and mildly nauseated and trying to remind myself that I look more professional when I’m not shoving my hands in my pockets and slouching – I can’t muster much enthusiasm for Mycroft nodding to me in the hallway.

“Mister Watson,” he greets. I nod back, stopping so he can see my discomfiture in its full glory. He’s oblivious to it.

“Mycroft. How are you?” 

“Pleasant enough. Have you thought more about possibly becoming a part of the Diogenes Club? Our first meeting is today.”

No. I’m too busy thinking about _everyone else._ “I’m sorry. I just can’t see myself being part of a club that I know absolutely nothing about.”

“That’s the glorious thing about it. No one understands it.” And Mycroft smiles knowingly before turning on his heel, still carrying an umbrella. Maybe he’s in love with the umbrella. Ugh, that would probably be painful to – why am I thinking about this? What he says reminds me that, not too long ago, I was thinking that the Diogenes Club was looking like an attractive option. Now, nothing really seems all that attractive to me. 

I pass by bulletin boards filled with flyers for things going on around school. There’s a football club, but the footy club at my old school sat around talking about how much they liked Man U. I hate Man U. Other things stick out to me, but I quickly discard them from my thoughts – comics club, library club (which I assume maintains the library), audiovisual club… nothing really seems to be a fit. I don’t really know what I like, or who I want to be around. Maybe Sebastian, but he’s in the acapella singing club with… everyone my psychologist wants me to avoid.

I move away from the bulletin board and up the stairs, avoiding the people looking at me. Might as well go to class.

\- -

Weirdly, the only person at lunch today is Anderson. He’s scribbling something furiously on weirdly-lined paper when I approach him with my tray. I never noticed, since table conversation is usually dominated by the two people who don’t eat (Sherlock and Jim), but Anderson actually eats too. That’s mildly comforting. I sit at his table; he gives me a small acknowledgment before going back to his writing. Close up, I finally understand what it is – musical notation. He’s writing music.

“…how many parts does that song have?” I ask curiously.

“Four, not counting the solo,” Anderson replies bluntly. “Lestrade can be a real asshole when he wants to be.”

I don’t quite understand what he means. “…Mr. Lestrade, the bio teacher?”

“He’s the acapella club supervisor, too,” Anderson notes testily, still not looking at me as he erases a note he’s displeased with. “And our meeting yesterday was a total disaster, thanks to you.” 

His sour disposition is doing nothing to ease my nerves. No wonder Sherlock loathes him… Jim doesn’t like him much either, but I assume Jim would just call him “ordinary”. Compared to the others, though, Anderson really is quite ordinary. He ascribes to the ridiculous club fashion of boys who still think Ali G is cool, he has a ridiculous haircut that matches his outdated fashion sense, and he’s crude and boyish to boot. You can’t say that about the others he hangs around –Sebastian is basically a group father, Sherlock is a tactless genius, Jim is a highly sexualized man-child. None of them actually act their age besides Anderson.

But their club meeting was a disaster because of me? Why’d it take me that long to register what he said?

“…what?” I ask blankly.

Anderson glares at me. “Everyone’s still all fucked up because of you and Jim. And since no one can deal with _feelings_ , Lestrade thought it would be interesting if we wrote arrangements of songs that reminded us of the situation.”

“And you picked?”

Anderson picks up the front page of his arrangement, and I’m not surprised in the slightest to see that it’s Cee-Lo Green’s ‘Fuck You’. 

“You went to help me, though!” I blurt out in confusion.

“Yeah, but it’s been two days and everyone’s still acting like you’re a perfect princess or something,” Anderson spits. 

This chav is the most odious person I’ve had the misfortune of meeting here, I decide. And that includes the nutcase who tried to assault me and can’t apologize for it. I feel my lip twitch a bit, forming a frown.

“Have you ever had a nervous breakdown, Anderson?” I ask darkly.

Anderson rolls his eyes. “No. I’m not crazy like you lot.”

“So why are you here?” I lean my elbows against the table, arms crossed over my chest as I stare at him. I don’t know if he can tell I’m beyond offended and annoyed with him right now – my bright red face isn’t usually a tip-off, but I’m incredibly fucking done with him at the moment.

“I like fire. Sue me.” Anderson goes back to adding musical notations forcefully to his writing. “Stuck with all these goddamn nutcases in this fucking spaz school –”

\- -

Weirdly, the person sitting next to me while I wait, irritably, to talk to the dean of the school is Jim. I’m still not completely… well, I still have major problems with him, but right now, we appear to be in the same predicament. He’s less frantic about it than I am, crossing his legs daintily, showing off his shiny blue trainers as he smirks at me.

“What’d you do?” he asks blankly.

“Punched Anderson in the face for calling you all… spazzes.” Saying it makes me flinch a bit. “What’d you do?”

“Masturbated in the locker room showers.”

“So we’re probably not going to be talked to at the same time.”

“No, probably not.” Jim pauses. “…Anderson’s so ordinary.”

“I get what you mean. Ordinary… he’s so… uurgh.” I lean back in the uncomfortable plastic chair in the waiting room, running my fingers through my hair and breathing out forcefully. Jim watches me from his own chair with a devious little smile. “He was talking about what you guys were doing in your acapella club right now. Working on his song.”

“Let me guess – ‘Fuck and Run’ by Liz Phair.”

“Nope, ‘Fuck You’.”

“Funny. Usually when he’s being a dipshit, he goes for that…” Jim shrugs. “I’m glad you punched him, he’s so… yeah, ordinary.”

We lapse into silence when the blonde secretary glares at us both. She takes a bit longer to glare at me; I assume she’s seen Jim around before. I assume that even more when Jim waves at her and she gives him the most venomous stare I’ve ever seen in my life. Jim doesn’t wither from it, but instead inspects his nails, rolling his eyes.

“What’re you writing?”

Jim raises an eyebrow. “…do you see me with a biro, John?”

“I meant for your club. What’re you working on?”

“Oh.” Jim continues looking at his nails. “…I don’t really know yet. I thought about it for a little bit, but then I needed to get some things taken care of.”

I nod a bit, going back to leaning into the wall. These chairs are incredibly uncomfortable. I know comfort is probably not the dean’s first priority, but I can feel my spine going out of alignment. “Is there a song you want to find?”

“Eh.” Jim frowns, shrugging, crossing his arms. “I’ll find one, I guess. If I ever get out of here.”

“How long does he usually take?”

“It depends on how often he sees you. Dr. Pitts is not very… what’s the word… efficient… with problem students. You should be fine. It’s only your fifth day.” He smiles at me, and it’s weird, but… it looks like a normal smile, but doesn’t feel like it. I can’t pinpoint what’s so odd about it though.

“Mr. Watson?”

The dean’s door opens, and Dr. Pitts glares down at me, not even paying attention to Jim. I sigh and walk into his office, giving Jim a frown quickly.

Jim shrugs back at me before pulling out his phone and busying himself that way.

\- -

No one looks exceptionally happy with each other at dinner.

Anderson’s nose is covered by a large plaster, resting exactly where I chinned him. Sherlock is consulting some notes, infuriated that he not only cannot get the blood-detecting serum to reverse-engineer, but that there is no song that conveys his intense scientific frustration (I think he missed the point of the assignment). Sebastian glares at whoever talks to me, Jim just keeps staring at me with his big raccoon eyes and not saying anything, and… there’s me. Keenly aware that no one is speaking because of me. Joy.

Seriously though, those raccoon eyes are boring a hole in my skull.

“…I can’t take this anymore,” I finally say, throwing my hands up and looking at everyone in turn. 

“You don’t look on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Sherlock notes testily, flipping to another page of his notebook vehemently. I roll my eyes, clasp my hands together to stop the worst of my shaking, and continue on.

“No, not like that. I know that I’m causing a lot of you problems. Or the thing. That happened. That’s causing a lot of problems.”

Anderson makes a noise that resembles a snort. I can’t really tell, considering that the plaster’s completely destroyed his voice. He now sounds like a nasally cartoon supervillain.

“And look, I’m dealing with it. That’s the whole reason I’m here – to deal with it,” I press, looking specifically at Sebastian. “But if you all treat me with kid gloves… or by insulting everyone I know –” I glare at Anderson, who immediately recoils from my withering gaze. I can see the faintest trace of a dangerous smirk on Jim’s face, and, for once, I don’t feel completely threatened by his presence, or the way he’s staring at me. Maybe he’s actually listening. I can’t ask for much else from him, after all. “ – then I’m not going to get anywhere, and we aren’t going to get anywhere.”

Sherlock’s put down his notebook, taking a sip of coffee before nodding to me. “Interesting. When confronted with a wholly alienating situation, you actually stand up for yourself.”

“He chinned me in the face!” Anderson says, irritated.

“He should get his own holiday for that,” Sebastian notes before looking at me, mildly concerned still. “...you sure you mean that?”

I nod. It’s rare for me to be so confident about something, but honestly, today’s been a slight anomaly. I don’t normally go around knocking people’s lights out, hanging out in dean’s offices with sex addicts, or passive-aggressively fighting with umbrella-carrying weirdoes… “If it gets people to start talking again.”

Seb rolls his eyes, but I can tell he’s smiling. Sherlock shrugs, going back to his work as if nothing happened, ignoring Anderson whinging about how I caved his skull in or some such thing. 

“Well. I need a song that describes my utter frustration with all of this,” Sherlock says bluntly. “Not you, John. Just…” He gestures to the pile of papers in front of him.

“‘Where Is My Mind’?” Sebastian suggests jokingly.

“There are not enough songs about science.”

“‘She Blinded Me With Science’?”

“There are not enough non-novelty songs about science…”

As they banter, and as Anderson keeps trying to futilely jump in, I suddenly feel a thin pair of arms quickly encircle my chest, and just as quickly pull away.

And Jim just stares at me, and his smile doesn’t have that odd emptiness to it anymore. I don’t think he sees anything strange in it, because he just jumps into the conversation to let Sherlock know that he could totally write an arrangement of ‘The Neutron Dance’, which was not a novelty song and how dare he besmirch the Pointer Sisters’ immaculate name.

But I can feel it. I’m left staring into space for a few seconds because of it.

It felt normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor trivia: the dean of Baker School has his name taken from the actor who played the superintendent in 'Reichenbach', Tony Pitts. The more you know!
> 
> Beyond that, we're getting into our newest arc, which will finally get us into exploring the acapella group a little more. Hopefully there will be a little less drama for the next few chapters, too, just some good old-fashioned character building. Whee!


	10. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you aren't in the Diogenes Club, you are in the acapella singing club. Fact.

“Jim gave me a hug.”

Dr. Donovan blinks. “…what?”

“Jim. Moriarty. He gave me a hug.”

“…woah.”

And the familiar words appear on Dr. Donovan’s notepad – ‘talk to Dr. Dimmock’. But there’s a little smiley face next to them this time. It makes me smile a bit.

\- -

The weekend is rather boring. I do the homework I need to (or, in the case of Biology, the homework that I can wrest out of Sherlock’s controlling grasp), I learn a little more about video games from Sebastian, I hear Sherlock’s violin-playing for the first time, I almost chin Anderson _again_ for reminding me that I missed the first Diogenes Club meeting and that I’d fit in much better with that freak-show… You know. Weekend stuff.

I manage to learn a bit more about everyone as well. Sebastian informed me late Sunday evening that Sherlock, unlike Jim, understands when he bothers people – he’s on the high-functioning end of the autism scale. He just has a hard time comprehending _why_ he bothers people. Like Jim, though, Sebastian thinks Sherlock is mildly attached to me, something I smirk at. Sherlock Holmes, attached to a person? It seems so weird to me still.

I’m also starting to think that Sebastian is in strong denial about having something wrong with him – he was pretty manically happy this weekend, but this morning, he looked, acted, and behaved like utter horseshit to me. I asked Jim about it when Sebastian went to refill his coffee.

“Eh, he’s moody,” Jim told me before stealing a bit of my hash browns with his fork.

“If you’re hungry, get some food.”

“It’s more fun this way.”

Which brings me to now, in Biology, watching Sherlock and Jim attempt to figure out what to do with their boatloads of free time. That’s what Sherlock gets for doing all of our work in an hour, I think to myself. Henry’s back, attempting to melt into his chair, while Jim needles Sherlock and Sherlock ignores him pointedly. I’ve started doodling in my notebook, making little caricatures of everyone I know. They are absolutely terrible, but there’s an odd comfort in it. I’ve already grown used to Sherlock’s deadpan. I don’t know if I’m totally used to Jim’s wild flirtations, but is anyone really ready for that?

“I am not going to write an arrangement of Garth Brooks’ ‘Thicker Than Blood’. That song is insipid, Jim. The essential metaphor is asinine,” Sherlock says, pen poised close to paper, as if inspiration may strike him at any moment. It’s been twenty minutes worth of moments, and still nothing. “‘Blood is thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood’? Love has no viscosity and cannot displace anything because of its essential weightlessness!”

Jim rolls his eyes. “I bet you’re just rolling in the bitches with rants like that.”

I snicker. Sherlock glances at me quickly before returning to his paper, staring at the blank musical staffs. “Have either of you made any headway on writing?” Sherlock’s biting sarcasm isn’t hard to miss, but, nevertheless, I stop making my doodles, putting my pencil down.

“…why would I make any headway with a song?” I ask incredulously. Henry squirms in his seat, eyes darting around – this kid has got something seriously up with him; when I moved to reintroduce myself earlier, he warned me about the red auras surrounding Sherlock and Jim, and that the hounds would come for all of them eventually. I assume he’s looking at auras right now. Or something. 

“You’re in the acapella singing group,” Sherlock says blankly.

The look on Jim’s face borders on indecently delighted. It immediately makes my hands tremble uncontrollably. 

“You’re going to _looooove_ it,” Jim coos. I really think he’s going to try and kidnap me one of these days. God knows what his rationale might be, but that smile roots around my stomach and makes it clench uncomfortably.

“What – no, I’m _not_ , Sherlock!” I snap at him. This gathers Henry’s attention, and the average-looking brunette with the flat face purses his lips at me.

“Club rooms tend to house the hounds,” he murmurs, all seriousness, to me. “They come out at night to feast on the students working on their extracurriculars. I’ve seen it. I was almost one of them. I don’t know how they get the blood out, but it has to be a conspiracy of –”

“You are preventing me from getting _laid_ , Henry,” Jim hisses.

“ _You_ are preventing you from getting laid.” I sigh, staring up at the ceiling. God, what on earth did you decide to throw in my lap now? “And I am not a part of your club.”

“You didn’t go to the Diogenes Club meeting,” Sherlock says plainly, actually writing a trio of harmony notes down on his paper before erasing them. Progress? “Ergo, you must be intending to join our club.”

“Or maybe I just don’t want to deal with any clubs!” I call back to Sherlock.

“Watson! Holmes! Moriarty!”

We all turn to the front desk, where Mr. Lestrade is glaring at us. Apparently we’ve been pretty loud. I shrink from the accusation; Sherlock stares straight at Mr. Lestrade; Jim gives him a wink and a coy giggle, something that should be so much more surprising to me than it is. Still glaring at us, unmoved by our collective reaction, he gestures for the three of us to come up to his desk.

I haven’t done much to get myself in Mr. Lestrade’s crosshairs before this. My lab partners certainly have, but I don’t actually enjoy getting in trouble. I’m sure news of how I chinned Anderson swept across the boarding school in no time flat and gave me a perception I don’t want, but things like this – being disruptive in class, getting a tongue-lashing from my teacher – I’m never very good with. My face goes crimson before I reach Mr. Lestrade’s desk.

He’s an older gentleman, his hair prematurely silvering from what I imagine is constant stress. If I had Sherlock and Jim in my class at the same time, I’d be stressed out too. Not to mention that he apparently leads the acapella choir… I hover near the desk. Sherlock stands next to me, standing tall and straight, looking like he doesn’t understand why he’s here. (He probably doesn’t understand why he’s here.) Jim, all tact and decorum, leans against Mr. Lestrade’s desk, crossing his arms, and it’s painfully obvious that his loose shirt is falling off of his frame. Mr. Lestrade gives Jim one look before rolling his eyes and, poking Jim’s forehead, pushes him off of his desk.

“The three of you are disrupting everyone else,” Mr. Lestrade points out as Jim crosses his arms and pops out his hip, pouting. It’s rather unnecessary. All of it.

“We were having a rather important discussion about work for the acapella club,” Sherlock responds blankly.

“He told me I’m a part of your club,” I interject, because that level of emotionlessness doesn’t exactly cover why I’m so irritated.

“You are, you aren’t part of the Diogenes Club,” Sherlock says again.

“It’s not an either-or proposition!”

“You know all of us, I don’t understand what the issue is.”

“As an actress said to the bishops,” Jim says with a dirty little smile, bouncing a bit at his stupid joke. I glare at him briefly, my face the colour of a tomato, before glancing back at Mr. Lestrade, hoping for some sort of reprieve.

Mr. Lestrade doesn’t do much. He’s been watching us with a mildly exasperated air, and he continues to watch us with a mildly exasperated air. “Sherlock, haven’t you been warned about aggravating this kid?”

“I don’t see why there’s any need to delay the inevitable. We already spend most of every day with him – ” Sherlock begins.

Jim gives me a look. I wish I could tell him to sod off because no, Sherlock is not interested in me, thanks very much. For someone who couldn’t feel it, he sure was interested in love.

“ – and it would be much more convenient for the faculty to have him in the club, anyways, given how volatile his condition is.”

“His condition’s volatile _because of you guys_.” Mr. Lestrade was a smart one. I stood around awkwardly through all this, wondering when people would realize I was right here and they could talk about me like I was present. Jim was basically using this time to send every non-verbal ‘fuck-me’ symbol known to man, and I suddenly became aware of who his erotomania was directed towards. Eh, he could do worse, I suppose. Mr. Lestrade clearly isn’t indulging him, thank God. “I’m not inclined to let –”

And the bell trills its ridiculous melody (which Sherlock told me one particular evening was ‘Traumerei’, composed by Robert Schumann), interrupting us and signaling a flurry of movement from everyone. Mr. Lestrade sighs, waving Jim and Sherlock away. “I want to talk to Watson.” 

Sherlock nods to Mr. Lestrade and moves to grab his things; Jim licks his lips, smirks, and does the same. The class clears out quickly, and soon, it’s just me and Mr. Lestrade in a too-bright biology lab, the detritus of class miraculously gone. Maybe I just didn’t notice it before, but Mr. Lestrade does show a lot of concern on his face. Maybe it’s because of how red and shaky I am right now. The idea of joining a club predicated on performance… with them?

“…Watson, I know that nothing Sherlock said is exactly wrong,” Mr. Lestrade opens with. “I also need to let you know that you _cannot_ chin our only beatboxer again.”

“I’m sorry, he caught me at a terrible time,” I answer honestly. “And he called everyone I know… a spaz.” I don’t think it’s possible for me to hate that word more. It was easier to say it in front of Jim, but not by much. Jim, after all, isn’t my stern, authoritative professor. Not by a long shot.

Mr. Lestrade nods, sighing to himself before looking back at me. “Anyways. I know that those two are going to use every trick they can think of to get you into the club. Have you slept with Jim yet?”

The two sentences are so diametrically opposed to each other that I almost think I hallucinated the second one. When I realize I’m wrong, I go an even darker shade of red, and my entire body begins convulsing. I can’t even formulate a good response. Sex? Me? _Him?!_

Mr. Lestrade takes my quivering reaction as a ‘no’. “Well, he won’t be able to use that like they did with Sherlock, then…”

And now I have about ten million questions to ask Sherlock, as opposed to my usual nine million.

“…but look. They’re going to do everything they can to get you into my club. If you don’t want to be in it, you have to let me know.” Mr. Lestrade leans back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap, waiting for my response.

“…I can’t read music. I can’t write music. I can barely sing.” The reasons start flowing out of me without any rhyme or reason. “I can’t perform because I’d probably pass out or have a nervous breakdown. I don’t play any instruments. Jim scares me. Sherlock scares me. I might punch Anderson again. I want to focus on graduating –”

“Watson, I don’t care if you want to join or not, you don’t need to give me a laundry list.” Mr. Lestrade pauses, though, trying to decipher my clearly aggravated visage. “…but do you want to join or not?”

“I don’t know.” That flows out easily, too. Up until now, I’d had a hard time admitting to myself that I’m uncertain about this. I mean, I’d just given Mr. Lestrade every reason in the book to not join. And yet…

I must be insane. I must be, if I’m considering joining the merry band of lunatics.

Mr. Lestrade shrugs. “Well, our next meeting is tomorrow afternoon. If you want to come and observe. I’ll make sure to keep them from getting too rowdy around you.” He smiles lightly, wearily, as if one of his biggest problems is keeping a handful of teenagers from attacking each other. It probably is. Baker School is weird like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes. We finally get to meet Mr. Lestrade, who will be dutifully putting up with all this nonsense. I have to say that this chapter had the most fun dialogue to write - something about Henry being added to the mix really excited me. Thank you for all the comments, page views, and kudos!


	11. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finds out about one of the Baker School acapella group's time-honored traditions. He's... less than... enthused... about it.

Sherlock appears to have given up on the reverse-engineering for now, finally getting around to inspecting that hand he’s hoarded in the refrigerator. I’m not sure if I prefer this experiment or not – at least it doesn’t smell like rotting flesh. Formaldehyde isn’t a much better scent, but I need to figure out a way to open a conversation about… Sherlock sleeping with Jim. I really wish my curiosity wasn’t this strong.

I’ve been sitting here for about thirty minutes, watching Sherlock take quick notations in his notebook before using his tweezers to gently flake skin off of the – it’s disgusting. What he’s doing is disgusting and I’ve barely watched any of it, preferring to stare at my shoes and shake gently. Sherlock might not even notice I’m here, honestly.

I still don’t know if I should go to the meeting tomorrow afternoon. I would immediately become the center of attention in that group – everyone’s so busy trying to seduce me and get me to come out of my shell and get my attention and pull on my hair and blame me for everything and teach me video games and poke me and whatever else they feel like doing on a whim. For some reason, I kind of want to talk to Sherlock about that, too. He’s definitely not a very emotional presence, but he could at least tell me what goes on in club and what they’re working towards. Plus, Anderson lied earlier this week; Sherlock’s violin playing is gorgeous. Not that I’ll ever tell anyone that.

Minutes pass on like hours. I eventually start picking up some of Sherlock’s lab equipment and looking at it; he doesn’t even notice, focused on looking at a flake of skin underneath his microscope. The hand is still here, reeking of chemicals, torn apart. To see the meat inside of a hand, not bleeding and oddly sterile… I just try to avoid looking at it, setting down a small empty test tube in a holder.

Finally, those milk-white eyes jut away from the microscope. “…Can I help you?”

“I’ve been here for…” I check the clock. “Thirty-nine minutes.”

“You should’ve said something. This isn’t very important. Just wondering what formaldehyde does to the various structures of the human hand immediately after tissue death.”

“What does it do so far?”

“…nothing that’s distinguishable from the tissue death,” Sherlock admits before picking up the microscope and setting it next to his chair on the ground. “You must have a reason for waiting so long to talk to me.”

There is no way to make this not awkward, so I don’t even try. “You slept with Jim.”

Sherlock inspects my face for a second before sweeping out of the room. I would be more offended by it if I hadn’t just tried to start a conversation about sex with Sherlock Holmes. I suppose I deserve that. Maybe I should’ve opened with the questions about the acapella club. See, this is why I need to get better, to understand social graces –

Within seconds, Sherlock is back with a different composition book. It’s prominently labeled “2011 – March, April, May” on the front. He flips through the pages as he sits back down. “I had to retrieve my notes on that particular experiment.”

I gape at him.

“Experiment?”

“Yes. I was wondering how little effort I could put into sexual activity and still have the partner reach climax. It was a series of ridiculously stupid acts, and, as it turns out, my data was corrupted by the fact that Jim is, in fact, in the throes of a rather powerful sexual addiction, and could probably climax in seconds if he had to. I’ve had no inclination to continue these studies, either, as I was getting rather irritated by student body catcalls based on what they presumed to be my non-normative sexuality.”

I gape at him still.

Sherlock takes this as an invitation to continue. “The first time was March 13, 2011, predicated by a lecture in Biology about human anatomy and its functionality. There was a childish discussion between two of the men in the back about how many times they could... bring a girl to sexual satisfaction” (it seemed he didn’t want to use the grotesque slang of his peers) “and it made me think what a stupid inclination that was. The real interest would lie in the opposite – what is the absolute least you could do to still fulfill the normal bodily processes?”

I gape at him still.

“Given that I caught Jim in the middle of something rather disturbing with a broom handle the week before in a supply closet –”

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock!” I finally am able to spit out. 

“…I won’t say what it was,” Sherlock responds blankly, thinking that’s what’s got me agog. I quickly set the record straight.

“You had sex with someone _as part of an experiment_? Do you have _any idea_ how _heartless_ that is?” 

Sherlock blinks, then raises an eyebrow, like he’s never been acquainted with heartlessness. “…well, I got the appropriate wavers and things signed by Jim, I don’t think he particularly cared.”

He wouldn’t. “But Sherlock – you understand that sex… it’s supposed to be with someone you really care about. Someone you want to be joined with.”

“By that logic, I would have had sex with my own mother, and Oedipal complexes are a rather outdated mode of sexual development.”

There’s no space on the table for me to headdesk into. “I just can’t believe you would do that.”

“Neither could Sebastian, but apparently, his coitus with Jim was brought on by some sort of shared madness.”

I gape at him anew.

\- -

“Ugh. I guess you had to find out at some point. Sorry, John.”

“Is banging Jim some sort of rite of passage?!” 

I flop back onto my bed, burying my face in my pillow to cover how red I am. I can’t really cover up the shaking. A good half of everyone I know has been sleeping around with the guy who tried to sleep with… oh. I turn my head towards Sebastian, who’s still pretending to diligently work his way through _A Clockwork Orange_ for his Year 12 English class, peering over its edges. He looks a bit embarrassed. I know I look a bit embarrassed. And red. And shaky.

“…I don’t think so,” Sebastian says with a shrug. He bites his lip before setting down the book and looking at me, pulling his legs close to his body. Looking out the window, the faintest trace of a smile plays across his lips as he murmurs, “he’s my best friend.” 

And I suddenly understand. “…he didn’t get it, did he?”

“No. And I mean, we’re better off with me grounding him and him bouncing off walls.” Sebastian shrugs again, smiling wistfully. It’s painful to see the nostalgia etched all over his face. I sit up, twiddling my thumbs.

“…sorry. About saying…”

“Oh, no. It seems that way, doesn’t it?” Sebastian notes. “He’s so completely aimless sometimes… and then he’ll get some idea in his head, and he’ll pursue it endlessly. That’s how it played out. We’d spent the whole semester wandering around, and then all of a sudden the only thing he wanted to do was see how far he could push me before I gave in to him.” Pause. “It wasn’t very much pushing.” Another pause. “And then he decided he was bored with that and decided he’d try to drive Anderson insane.”

“Did it work?”

“…no, they just ended up…”

I don’t think my eyes could look any deader. “You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

Sebastian doesn’t exactly look pleased about it. “The acapella group is basically Jim and a bunch of people Jim blackmailed.”

“…was he going to do that to me?”

“Probably.”

“And you would’ve let him?”

Sebastian doesn’t have a good answer for that. It should hurt more, but it doesn’t.

\- -

I decide to take a walk late that evening, try to clear my head. I still don’t know if I should join the acapella club, now even more so that it’s clear everyone’s interpersonal relationships are totally fucked. Jim can’t control his addiction, Sebastian clearly had – or has – some sort of thing for his best friend that he knew would never be reciprocated, Sherlock literally does not understand life, and Anderson’s a massive prat. Mr. Lestrade flat-out said that everyone around me is doing a fantastic job of driving me crazier. But…

…I want to be with them.

It makes absolutely no sense, but even knowing that there’s probably waves of darkness beneath every one of my new friends, I’m somehow accepting of that. I’m sure that whenever I find out something new about them, my jaw will drop and my head will swim. Hell, maybe a panic attack will come along. But… I can’t really explain it. I can’t piece together why so many bad signals and darkness is drawing me in, little by little. I feel like I can see myself in the fragments of the lives around me. We’re all pretty shattered, obviously. Shattered and trying to pull ourselves back together just enough to survive.

I would be better off in the Diogenes Club. I know that. But there’s something happening here. I can –

“Oh hellooooooooooo John!”

Yep, there’s something happening here, and I turn my head towards the too-familiar voice. He’s just lying in the grass next to one of the goal nets, which obviously didn’t get taken down after footy earlier today. Arms underneath his head, he looks at me from a few paces away, beaming. I sigh and trudge over to him, sitting down next to him and leaning my head against the PVC pipe holding the net together. Wasn’t I just saying that I would be accepting of all this? That maybe I was supposed to be in the acapella club? Because Jim’s toothy, hungry smile is making me seriously rethink that.

“Why’re you laying in wet grass?”

“Mycroft’s having date night with his umbrella,” Jim deadpans before snorting a bit. “…It just seemed like a good idea.”

“Is it?”

“You ask too many questions, John.” 

I roll my eyes and shove my hands in the pockets of my Tesco coat, staring up at the stars – or the stars that aren’t obscured by London lights. I do miss the relatively open spaces of Northumberland, the veritable blanket of stars that coated the evening sky every night. Seeing a few stars, though, is still nice.

“It’d be nice if you joined the acapella club,” Jim offers. It’s much gentler than he normally is. I’m automatically suspicious of his sentiments – this is the man who said he couldn’t feel anything. More importantly, this is the man who probably would’ve assaulted me before he got any sort of control over himself. He must’ve just realized this would be a good tack to take, a good way to manipulate me. I treat it flippantly.

“I’m thinking about it,” I respond.

“Oh. That’s nice.” Jim’s voice sounds bored. Maybe someone’s making him do this… though I have a hard time believing Jim would take orders from anyone.

“…you’ve slept with everyone in that club.”

“Everyone but Mr. Lestrade.” And Jim actually sounds bitter. Erotomania, I remind myself.

“You can’t honestly think that’ll -?”

“But it will!” Jim pops up out of the grass, his hair slicked with dew. I look at him quizzically, which makes him glare at me. “Look, you don’t understand. He loves me, he just can’t show it because of the age difference, and me being a student, and all that. One of these days, though, he’ll steal me away. I just know it.” 

I remember how melancholy Sebastian looked when reflecting back on Jim, and I have a hard time rebuking his thoughts immediately. Fucked-up interpersonal relationships are apparently the norm here.

I wonder how long it’ll take me to fuck something up as badly as Jim has. As Sherlock has. As Anderson does every day.

I can’t very well tell Jim that it’s a delusion, though. That no one loves him. Like I thought earlier – for someone who can’t feel it, he sure is obsessed with it. Love. It’s completely elusive to him. Maybe he’s just waiting for someone to sweep him off his feet, to tell him all the things he’s read in books and heard in movies, and for his mechanical heart to start working and whirring and feeling and loving. Aren’t we all, Jim, aren’t we all.

“Doesn’t you sleeping with anything that moves… won’t that make him jealous? Or not want to be with you?” I ask.

“He knows that’s a compulsion. I can’t do anything about that. If he was around, though, it would only be him. He’d never leave my room.”

“How will he teach?”

“Skype. From my room.”

“You have this pretty well thought-out.”

“I get bored pretty easily.”

The two of us stare up at the night sky again. 

“You ever wish on a star, John?” Jim asks me out of nowhere.

“Yeah, once. I wished for my parents back.”

“I wished to feel.”

“…damn, thanks for making me look like a total ass.”

Jim smiles at me. And for the first time, I see, from the lines on his face, just how hard this simple conversation has been for him. Pursing my lips, I put a hand on his shoulder and rub it a little bit.

“Thing’s… well, they probably won’t get better. But they’ll get more bearable. That’s all you can ask for,” I tell him.

“No, they’ll get better for me. Because I’ll make them better,” Jim defies me. “…maybe you should start thinking like me.”

“Maybe _you_ should start thinking like _me_ ,” I retort.

“You’re so stupid. …oh don’t give me that look, I’m sure that’s how Sherlock lures you into his pants. ‘You stupid git, you made my bath fizzy experiment go to pot. Bed. Now.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I love this chapter too much, too. It's gotten obvious that I love Jim, but I also love getting into the grittier complications of everyone's problems here. There's a lot of blossoming plot threads that get started in this chapter, so stay tuned <3


	12. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to a very, very scary place: the choir room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just thought I'd mention that, whenever songs are extensively sung in the fic proper, I will link to them in the bottom chapter notes. There's only one song like that here, and I'll be avoiding doing that too much. It's a fic, not a musical. XD

I’m at the rehearsal.

I don’t know what I’m doing here.

By the looks of it, half of the club doesn’t know what I’m doing here, either. There’s Sebastian, who looks genuinely perturbed (and has since I came back from the field at about two this morning, covered in dew and rambling about how Mr. Lestrade should get a restraining order); Sherlock, whose smug face is looking incredibly punchable right now; Jim, who’s too distracted with trying to flirt Mr. Lestrade to death to notice someone as wholly insignificant as his intended rape victim; and Anderson, who’d finally gotten the plaster off his nose. His reaction to me was, as expected, angry and irrational.

“What’s he even doing here -?!” 

“He’s observing to see if he wants to join,” Sherlock interjects coldly, tuning his violin while sitting on a set of risers. The acapella club room is the music classroom, weirdly cavernous and empty. The risers take up half of the room; the other half is dead space. There’s a piano in the corner, but it’s a fairly small upright variety, nothing too glamorous. Mr. Lestrade is sitting at it now, pointedly ignoring Jim’s constant questions and arranging some sheet music, looking at it with a critical eye.

“I’ll just sit in a chair in the corner,” I say, pulling a chair into the corner of the room, divorced from everyone else. I sit down to prove the point, and the club goes as it normally would, once everyone determines that I will stay in the emo-kid corner – Mr. Lestrade starts talking about everyone’s arrangements, saying that his personal favorite was Sebastian’s melancholy take on Adele’s “Rumour Has It”. Everyone sits on the risers in their own fashion, with Sherlock farthest away from the rest of the group, Anderson and Sebastian towards the center, and Jim as close to Mr. Lestrade as he can get. Mr. Lestrade distributes Sebastian’s version of “Rumour Has It” to everyone, and they inspect it. Sherlock says some highly technical things about the notation of the song, things I don’t understand, but seems appreciative of it. Mr. Lestrade, looking shocked that everyone is generally in agreement on the arrangement, asks that they actually try it out.

I’ve forgotten how much I like music, honestly. I don’t hear much of it, don’t have much of it in my life anymore. Harry sings, but terribly; we had one MP3 player with so much of our parents’ music that we didn’t have the heart to delete any of it. We heard a lot of Carpenters and Elton John, which, you know, they’re great. But ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ gets really depressing when the parents who taught you the semi-correct words to it are dead.

I’m not really familiar with “Rumour Has It”. Like I said, listening to music isn’t really something I do. Anderson is the rhythm, so he sets up the beat of the song, looking at the sheet music with great concentration, and the song’s actual backings start, courtesy of Sherlock and Jim. Jim has a higher voice than Sherlock; I assume there’s some sort of term for that, but whatever. Sebastian has the opening solo.

I start wondering about what the words mean to him, and how they apply to how last week was.

_She, she ain’t real,_  
She ain’t gonna love you like I will,  
She is a stranger –  
You and I have history,  
Or don’t you remember? 

It’s enough to make me squirm initially, in light of what Sebastian told me last night. Greeeeat. But the song continues on, and it’s less about that, the way Sebastian sings his solo. Everything coming out of his mouth takes on this heavy, biting sarcasm, which fits him fairly well. Even when everyone’s voices blend together, he never loses that judging tone.

His song is basically telling everyone to lay off and move on with their lives.

Especially during the interlude, where Anderson’s rhythm cuts out, and the only backing vocal is a steady, slightly unnerving, choral ‘ooo’ in the background (I have to learn what the proper terms for these things are), and Sebastian steps forward to deliver the most scathing message of the whole song. 

_All these words, whispered in my ear,_  
Tell me stories I cannot bear to hear…  
Just cause I said it don’t mean that I meant it. 

\- -

“What do you think, Watson?”

I decide to hang behind and help out Mr. Lestrade sort the papers he’s been looking at the whole time. The group worked on finessing “Rumour Has It”, in addition to another song that Anderson and Sebastian worked on earlier this year (another more modern number I haven’t heard of, OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again”). Apparently there’s a small showcase in a few weeks, with them and an all-girls finishing school presenting small sets. Jim was trying to ramble on about it to me while flirting with Mr. Lestrade while noting his part on sheet music, so I didn’t get much out of the conversation besides that.

I move my chair back in the opposite corner of the choir room, not wanting to admit that the whole thing was… way less dramatic than I thought it’d be. Apparently, one thing the Baker School crazies are good at is buckling down and getting to work. And I’ll have to look up this Adele person, because I really like that song. I don’t want to admit it, but… I enjoyed that. I think Mr. Lestrade can tell.

“You guys actually get things done,” I say. Well, I can admit that shocked me, going back across the room to help Mr. Lestrade file everyone else’s rejected songs. Sherlock didn’t turn one in because, as he claimed, there are not enough songs about scientific frustration and he’d rather be seen as a nuisance than a hack; Anderson’s arrangement of “Fuck You”, while technically skilled, would probably get them thrown out of competition for age-inappropriate profanity; and Jim’s song was glossed over completely, though I caught the name of it – “Crushed Rush Crush”. Or something like that; Jim slurred the song title so badly I could barely comprehend it. There were more songs scattered about, though, complex beautiful things. Not that I could sing them – I could just tell from all the notes scattered around that they must be complicated. I barely understand how singing in parts works, after all.

“We compete. It’s what we do,” Mr. Lestrade says with a smirk, also slotting music into a large box, filled with manila folders. “I hope it wasn’t too awkward, listening to that song Sebastian wrote about… what Jim and you went through.”

“I actually appreciated it,” I note. “He got at the essential stupidity and craziness of it all.”

Mr. Lestrade inspects me for a second before, confident that that’s a compliment, he pulls a song out of the box, glancing at it before handing it to me. I take it uneasily, looking down at the title. Well, at least it’s a song I know – every British person is pretty much required to know “Candle in the Wind”. I take in as much as I can about the piece – arranged by Mr. Lestrade himself, whose first name is apparently Greg; lots of notes. That’s about it.

“…I can’t read this,” I tell him.

“I know.” Mr. Lestrade moves over to the piano. “…I just want to hear you try to sing it. Sing the melody.”

“…which is?”

“The main part.” Mr. Lestrade hits the first chord of the song on the piano, wanting me to go on. I frown, glancing down at the music.

“…Mr. Lestrade, I can barely sing.”

“You told me that yesterday.”

“I’ll bring everyone down – don’t you have a showcase -?”

“John.” 

I pause. That’s the first time Mr. Lestrade’s called me by my first name. “…yes?”

“I know you want to be here. I can tell. You were really involved in the singing and what everyone was doing. I know that you won’t be a good performer, and that you’ll probably run off stage blushing and shaking and screaming when we perform. But you need an environment where you feel comfortable. Hell, you’re more comfortable with Jim than I am.”

“…you know he has -?”

“Erotomania? Yes, unfortunately. I had to change my phone number a few times.”

I wince. But I look back at the music, reflecting on this after a moment. Mr. Lestrade wants to give me something good – somewhere where I can feel comfortable with myself. The words Sherlock told me about not being able to stand up for myself echo in my head… but this isn’t caving. I do… I do kind of want to be in this club. At least to listen to the music. And if Mr. Lestrade is okay with me staring out into a crowd and awkwardly shuffling offstage, well, I’ll be his man.

…not like that. 

I quickly move over to the side of the piano, and Mr. Lestrade plays the piano chord again. Tentatively, I open my mouth, my throat dry and my focus wavering, and begin to sing.

_Goodbye Norma Jean…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: here's Adele's "Rumour Has It". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3t7MAwaaM
> 
> Secondly, we're transitioning into the club drama and all that jazz! So this is a short, kinda boring chapter, I apologize.


	13. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The acapella group showcase - featuring a bunch of posh whores vs. Jim, the quintessential posh whore, and his harem - is apparently coming up. Good to know.

“How the actual fuck have you never heard of Adele before?” Anderson asks me.

Somehow, the entire acapella club ended up in me and Sebastian’s room after rehearsal. I’m okay with this now, but at the time, it was strange. When I told them I was going to join the club on a trial basis, since I can barely read music, sing, or perform, given my condition, they all eased up quite a bit. Jim propped open our window to smoke, Sherlock pulled out his laptop and iPod to start teaching me songs, Anderson told me I wasn’t allowed to chin him again, and Sebastian… continued reading like nothing happened. Good old Seb.

I shrug at Anderson, feeling a little lightheaded from all the things going on around me, not to mention the acrid smell of Jim’s cigarette. He’s thoughtfully disposing of his ashes by dropping them out the window, which seems somewhat problematic to me, but what do I know? 

“My family… we weren’t very musical. My parents used to listen to, like, Elton John. And The Beatles. But nothing much modern.” I think for a second. “I know Amy Winehouse.” I can sense Jim rolling his eyes at this – I really wasn’t trying to have a go at him, but whatever. “And… whoever sings that one song. The one that’s all, ‘baby you light up my world like nobody else…’” I sing a poor approximation of a boy band, something that makes Sebastian snicker wildly.

“My little sister _loves_ that song,” he notes, flipping the page. I can tell that was an insult, as Anderson snickers just as loudly.

“So your entire musical knowledge is Elton John, the Beatles, Amy Winehouse… and One Direction,” Anderson summarizes for the benefit of the group. Now Jim’s laughing too. Sherlock is too involved with transferring files and recording little bits of him talking to care.

“Not all of it, I left a bunch of classic stuff out,” I protest.

“Like S Club Seven?” Jim drolly notes. This is apparently hysterical, as Sebastian almost curls into a ball, he’s laughing so hard.

“No, Girls Aloud,” Anderson corrects.

“You like Backstreet Boys?” Jim is totally needling me now.

“BBMak?” So is Anderson. Sebastian looks about ready to piss himself laughing – I can’t even hear him anymore. It’s just air coming from him. Air and tears of sheer joy.

“No, like Carpenters. And The Supremes…” It’s really no use, though; everyone is laughing at me for knowing a song by an embarrassing band. I don’t know shit about One Direction, though, honestly – just that they sing that really irritating catchy song. ‘Wooah-oh-oh, she don’t know she’s beautiful’ – it’s so vapid. So vapid.

“You should write an arrangement of ‘Call Me Maybe’,” Sebastian says, when he finally regains control of his faculties. That sets Anderson off laughing. Jim puts out his cigarette on my windowsill, grinning like a loon.

“But gentlemen, John doesn’t just listen to utter dross!” he mock-protests. “He only listens to utter dross!”

“Maybe you guys should help me listen to good music,” I pointedly tell Jim, glaring at him, my mouth halfway between a smirk and a grimace. Jim’s grin grows even wider, and he pulls away from the window, bringing with him the smell of tobacco and his light cologne as he pulls out his phone and immediately starts playing… wait. I know this song. And I can’t help but laugh derisively.

“…wait, what the fuck, you’re mocking me for liking… whatever you said I liked, and your idea of good music is the Bee Gees?” I splutter out. Sebastian is back to cackling like a maniac – he must be on one of his highs right now. Guess I’ll avoid the low tomorrow.

Jim frowns at me, rolling his eyes and acting all superior as he shuts off the music. “Oh, you’re so hip, mocking disco.”

“Mate, this song is shite,” Anderson stands up for me, pulling out his own smart phone and playing… well, it’s not much better, whatever it is. It sounds like someone dropped a ton of instruments down a staircase, with someone mumbling indecipherable lyrics over it. Sherlock actually looks up from his laptop for a second and turns to Anderson.

“I’ve never understood a word of this song,” he says bluntly.

“Oh come on, not this again,” Anderson whinges.

“Is it ‘we’re going downtown in a tulaleera’?” Jim asks. He sounds like he’s mocking it, whatever it is.

“No, ‘downtown in a tutu go-round’,” Sebastian says. He might be serious.

“What the fuck is a tutu go-round?” Jim counters.

“Well, the next lyric is about cocks and pudding.”

“No!” Jim is getting really defensive now. “It’s not about pudding! It’s ‘cock it and suck it’!”

I try listening to it myself, and the best I can come up with is ‘lonely guy context, cock in a bullet’. Enunciation is overrated, anyways. “What the hell is this?”

“Fall Out Boy,” Sherlock says. Thank the Lord for facts.

“…I can’t say I like this much better,” I admit. “I like being able to understand what’s going on in a song. Or… you know, I enjoy not being assaulted by cymbals.”

Sebastian grins, gesturing to Jim. “Play some Jessie J, will you, Jim?”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, Seb, let’s all just kill ourselves now.” But he does as told, and a heavy beat begins suffusing the room, and a woman half-convincingly begins rapping. 

“…I can’t say I’m a big fan of rap –” I note before Sebastian cuts me off.

“No, hold on, hold on…” He lets the music enter him before the chorus kicks up and he starts screaming out the lyrics. _“DO IT LIKE A BROTHER, DO IT LIKE A DUDE –”_

I gape at Anderson. “Tell me this is a joke.”

“Nope. Sebastian’s gonna marry her.” Anderson nods gravely, barely containing his mocking smile. 

“You made us listen to the nonsensical fat emo kid again, don’t act like you’re off the hook,” Jim threatens, moving to light up another cigarette.

“He lost a ton of weight – ” Anderson corrects. He protested the wrong thing, I think.

I sigh, leaning against my desk. “…look, can we just listen to more of that Adele woman? I liked what Seb wrote for her song. Can we all be okay with that?”

“Fine,” Anderson says immediately, and Jim flips over to a more melancholy song before looking directly at me. “…we need to get you up on music, though. Get you a portable CD player or a cheap iPod or something.”

“I’m pretty poor.”

Jim snorts. “Aw, you’re adorable, thinking money is an object.”

I make myself a mental note to not mention that again. 

“But seriously, you need to be up on music,” Jim continues, lighting up his cigarette and inhaling it deeply as he looks out the window once more.

\- -

Sherlock and I, as usual, end up in our common area at the end of the day, after meals and more needling me about how hopelessly out of date my musical tastes are. Instead of science, though, he’s catching me up on everything (factual and detached from emotion) I’ll need to know about the acapella club. He spent the whole time in me and Sebastian’s room making recordings of my ‘parts’ in the songs, guessing that I was a ‘tenor’. That’s what Mr. Lestrade labeled me, too. Right now, he’s explaining how competition works.

“We’re doing a showcase in two weeks with our rivals. It’s an all-girls’ finishing school acapella choir, and we always lose Regionals to them,” Sherlock explains blankly, like he couldn’t care less if they won or not. “Always meaning for the past two years. They started up their choir two years ago. They are fairly talented, if I’m allowed to veer into the realm of opinion.”

“Where are they from?” I ask.

“The Belgravian Women’s Finishing School. Jim called it ‘a place for posh whores’ once, but Anderson told him he was basically a posh whore himself.” Sherlock really doesn’t have any understanding of humourous asides, I sense, when I start giggling at this and he looks at me quizzically. I shut up quickly. “They have a new club president this year, from what Miss Molly Hooper tells me. She’s one of the finishing school girls in the club. She likes to chatter aimlessly.”

“And yet Sherlock refuses to make her get information from them.”

Jim’s hiding out in the doorframe, inspecting an apple as he pushes his body up against the wall. I still don’t understand why he moves the way he does.

“…why would I do such a thing? I could find out that information myself if I was at all interested in knowing anything about them,” Sherlock answers bluntly.

Jim looks at me pointedly, smirking. “Miss Molly Hooper fancies him.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock says drolly. “Her pupils dilate every time she comes near me, she often fidgets uncontrollably whenever any of my extremities – hands, feet, arms – get near hers in any capacity, she makes conscious efforts to change her appearance anytime I make a passing comment on what I like or dislike about people around us to better fit what she would find to be my ‘ideal’ – I could go on.”

“Honestly I don’t care,” I say as honestly as possible.

“Neither do I,” Sherlock agrees, going back to his computer. “She babbles on and on about all kinds of things whenever she asks me for coffee.”

“But she’s not your girlfriend.” Jim basically read my mind on that one.

Sherlock narrows his eyes in confusion. “Why would she be? She buys me coffee and gets me out of the school every few weeks.”

“And you’re interested in someone else?” Jim offers, not so subtly looking at me. I glare at him. He winks at me, like he’s somehow being helpful.

Sherlock doesn’t notice any of our nonverbal bickering, instead plugging a small MP3 player into his computer. “I’m interested in a lot of people. Sometimes. And sometimes people are boring and I’m not interested in them.”

What a typically Sherlockian answer, I think, as Jim, bored and sighing melodramatically, takes a bite of his apple and slides out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first part of this chapter really doesn't do a whole lot, I know. But I love showcasing people interacting and subtly building up their characterization. The first part is also kind of ridiculously music-in-joke-y, so I apologize, but I didn't have the heart to delete the whole thing. I kind of love it. The second part is SLIGHTLY more important, being plot-related and all, and yes, we're actually going to get some women up in here soon. Also, PUPIL DILATION. 
> 
> Sorry about the extreme delay in chapter posting. I'm working on a rather detailed paper for my undergrad work, and that's taken up a lot of my time. I'm hoping that, because I'm on my spring break, I'll get a lot of writing done and I'll be able to post at a better pace. Thank you all for reading, kudos-ing, commenting, and bookmarking my fic! I feel so honored. I'm also hoping to finish work on a TVTropes page for this fic soon, so when that's completed, I'll put the link in the summary <3


	14. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Donovan shows her true colours. Or the colours John was pretty sure were already there.

Dr. Donovan isn’t entirely thrilled that I joined the acapella singing group, when I finally get around to telling her on this fine Friday. Or… I mean, I’m beating around the bush. She looks like she’s going to throttle her biro as she scribbles notes, still unaware that I can read what she’s writing. “Talk to Greg” sticks out, plain as day, on the yellow legal pad, though there’s multitudinous other notes around it. I know I waited three days to tell her about this, but I honestly figured someone – or someone else’s therapist – would’ve clued her in. I shift in my seat nervously, acutely aware of the sweat beading behind my ears.

I told her a lot of things I hadn’t gotten around to speaking about – I wanted to tell the story of me joining the acapella group in one full block, so she also has heard, for the first time, about me and Jim laying in the football field, me being unaware of most modern music, getting my first MP3 player from Sherlock and starting to learn musical parts by ear, and about Miss Molly Hooper and the shadowy Belgravian Finishing School acapella group. Dr. Donovan didn’t find most of my stories as interesting as I do, I have to say.

“John, I have to be honest with you here. Throwing yourself into a group with multiple volatile people – people who you’ve beaten up and people who gave you panic attacks – is probably the worst decision you could possibly make,” Dr. Donovan tells me sternly. Her knuckles are clenched so tightly on her biro that they’re going white. 

“Mr. Lestrade and I decided that it was a good thing for me to try and take on,” I let her know, again, for the umpteenth time. She’s unmoved.

“It’s a performance-based club. And you get panic attacks. I thought your goal was to lessen the onset of them.” I can tell she’s about ready to scold me, her extensive training the only thing keeping her from doing so. 

“Dr. Donovan, I really want to try this out,” I press, feeling incredibly put off by this whole interaction. I take a step out of my comfort zone, get accepted (slightly – and I looked up One Direction on Sebastian’s computer, and now understand why everyone was taking the piss out of me for knowing their song) by the peers I was terrified of, and am slowly but surely getting used to all of their quirks – and my therapist thinks it’s the wrong move.

“Fine.” She throws her hands up in the air and leans back in her chair. “I care about your safety and your sanity, John. You have to know that between Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty, I can’t guarantee either.”

I pause. I understand why she’d mention Jim. And honestly, though I feel like he’s been much better around me as of late (only leaning up against me every other meal time instead of every meal time, pointedly ignoring me whenever Mr. Lestrade is in his sightline), he still has the potential to utterly humiliate and destroy me again. Sherlock, though? “…Sherlock?”

Dr. Donovan nods. “One of his experiments is going to kill someone someday. I’m certain of it.”

Well, I can’t say I hadn’t thought of that before, but he still seems like he shouldn’t be on the same plane as Jim. Not to mention that this all seems… very petty of a psychologist to start telling her patient. I frown and get up.

“I’m done for today,” I tell her simply, above her protests, and walk out of the room.

Since Wednesday, Anderson’s met me outside of therapy, so we can go to English together. He’s still not entirely nice, friendly, or personable to me, but we’re getting better at carrying on conversations with each other. He’s continued to try and foist Fall Out Boy on me, though, and none of the songs he’s forced me to sit through sound any less like someone wailing unintelligibly over cacophonous drum-banging.

I don’t feel much like talking right now, something Anderson notices and promptly ignores. “Was she being a bitch?”

“…she’s upset that I joined the club. Says it’ll just make my condition worse.”

“That’s logical, honestly.” Anderson shrugs, putting his hands behind his head as we walk up the staircase. “But she doesn’t really notice anything beyond logic.”

“She’s harder to talk to than Jim sometimes.”

“Right. Just enough emotion to make you think she’s not a robot.”

That wasn’t exactly what I was going for. “…I mean, she cares too much. The opposite problem with like, Sherlock and Jim.”

“She doesn’t give two shits about Sherlock.”

“I’ve noticed.”

\- -

The big showcase is a week from today.

I am diligently learning my parts and playing catch-up with Sherlock’s blue iPod after classes today, listening to the repetitive notes in my room as I look at the sheet music for “Rumour Has It”. Ooooo-ooo. Ooooooo-ooo. I do mostly “oo”s. I’m okay with this for now. Mr. Lestrade also gave me some basic worksheets yesterday, to help me understand how to read music. He said that eventually, I’d have to help write some music, probably for our Regionals set. The club needs nine songs, and they only have three right now.

Sebastian is working on a song, too, writing out an arrangement for it. He has no iPod, no music on, no anything. I don’t know how he does it, I think, murmuring out my notes as I listen to the music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, you knew Donovan couldn't be helpful forever, right? 
> 
> Also, in an irony to end all ironies, I'm listening to and loving the new Fall Out Boy album. They've been my fave band for a while now, so it's always fun to write John just not getting anything they do. As always, thanks for the kudos, comments, bookmarks, and hits! <3


	15. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm.

“John, you’ve got to move with us if you sway. Otherwise the audience is gonna get seasick. Idiot.”

Anderson’s advice is blunt and to the point. It’s Tuesday, and my first rehearsal being fully integrated into the acapella club – on last Thursday, I watched again, but participated in the singing as much as I could. I’m now a part of Sherlock’s ‘section’. We’re both tenors, Anderson does the beatboxing-like rhythms, Sebastian is a bass, and Jim is whatever is necessary of him, usually in an alto or soprano range. I’m starting to pick up the terminology of singing, which is great, but I apparently do not sway properly.

“Rumour Has It” is pulling together nicely, it would seem, except for me. I’ve been bright red during every performance, and forgot half of my part the first time around because I was so focused on not fucking things up completely. Anderson’s lost all patience with me completely. Thankfully, no one else cares – and not in a ‘you’ll do fine’ way, they honestly are focused on other things. Sebastian is busy castigating himself for dropping a note and is in one of his dour moods, Sherlock is trying to fend off text messages from Miss Molly Hooper, and Jim is being Jim-like all over the piano. We are all incredibly pathetic today.

Mr. Lestrade frowns at Anderson. “He’s fine. We need to get this movi – Jim, get the hell off the piano, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Jim probably doesn’t understand embarrassment, but he does get off, grinning like a loon as he moves back into the line next to me. Sherlock is on my other side, turning off his phone and muttering about how he doesn’t understand what he did to make her so irritable. I wish I could assume that was sarcasm – texting Molly Hooper about how he would be too busy working on showcase things to help her work on showcase things suggested a level of interpersonal idiocy thus far unmatched by anyone I’ve ever met.

Mr. Lestrade looks pretty sternly at the rest of us. “You guys all know why we need to look good at this showcase – The Belgravian Women’s Finishing School has beaten us at every Regional competition since they’ve created an acapella choir. And if we come out of the gate with our best foot forward –”

“ – The Finishing School will alter their performance list to be even more difficult to overcome. If we’re moving logistically, Mr. Lestrade, we should honestly be as terrible as possible to throw them off their game,” Sherlock offers.

We’re all silent for a second.

“…What if they do the same thing?” Sebastian offers to Sebastian. “I mean… what if they’re deliberately terrible to scare us off? Then we’d think, with our level of skill, that we’re much better than them when we aren’t.”

“Or maybe we’ll both do incredibly well at the showcase and work ourselves to death trying to outdo each other,” Jim murmurs. “Boring way to die…”

Mr. Lestrade’s spent most of this exchange staring at the ceiling in exasperation. He’s still staring at the ceiling in exasperation. I don’t blame him in the slightest.

“No, what we’re going to do is knock those girls on their asses,” Mr. Lestrade impresses upon us. 

“…and then what’ll we -?”

“Jim, _shut up._ ” Mr. Lestrade glares at all of us, one by one, Sherlock, Sebastian. His glare softens minutely for me, coming back to its full intensity when his eyes fall upon Jim, and Anderson. “Look. The school thinks this program is a joke. They want most of you locked up for the rest of your days, and the ones they don’t want hidden away, they want out of this club in particular.” I know he’s speaking of me, and go red with frustration and embarrassment. Jim rubs my arm, which makes me even more frustrated and he knows it. “Everyone in the faculty here thinks I should be moved to a safer location because of one of you.” Jim stops touching my arm, instead crossing his own across his lithe frame, shutting himself off from the criticism. His smile never slips. “All of the psychologists here believe you don’t deserve this, or aren’t ready for this, or this and that and the other thing. But if we can win… well, history is written by winners. And in our short history, we’ve been kowtowed by a bunch of rich functional people.”

“Are you trying to give an inspirational speech?” Anderson finally asks, ruining the mood thoroughly.

Jim jabs him in the chest with one of his pointy elbows. “Shut up, it’s hot.”

Sherlock says nothing, focusing intently on Mr. Lestrade. 

But a smile soon cracks across his visage. It looks so alien, but so correct. 

“Ah. So your logic is that we do so well on Friday that we manage to damage their winner’s pride so thoroughly that a win at Regionals is all but taken care of.”

No one speaks. 

Mr. Lestrade only smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this is really short. But the next chapter is going to be extra-long, to make up for it. I apologize for not posting as actively, but soon. Soon. <3


End file.
